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The Development, Heyday, and Demise of Panbabylonism by Gary D. Thompson

Copyright © 2004-2012 by Gary D. Thompson

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The Development, Heyday, and Demise of Panbabylonism

Introduction:

This article primarily seeks to trace the twin influences leading to Panbabylonism (pan-Babylonismus). (Also termed Pan-babylonianism/Panbabylonianism.) These were (1) the theme of Babylonian influence on the Bible, and (2) the theme of diffusion from Babylon. The theme of Babylonian influence on the Bible originated with the discovery of a Babylonian version of a flood myth that had similarities to the flood myth in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. The theme of diffusion of culture from Babylon originated with discoveries and theories regarding Babylonian metrology. Both ideas were to come together in the early 1900s in the Panbabylonian beliefs of Hugo Winckler. Winckler can be considered the real founder of Panbabylonism in his Geschichte Israels, Volume 2, 1900. By 1901, with the publication of his Himmels- und Weltenbild der Babylonier, Winckler had worked out a comparative schema of world mythology based on Babylonian presuppositions. An alternative term for Panbabylonism is the Astral-mythological school. The more exact designation for Panbabylonism would be Panbabylonian astralism. Ultimately it sought to explain many historical persons and events within a framework of astral mythology (diffused at an early date from Babylonia). (The Panbabylonian theory contained no reason why other cultures could not themselves originate astral myths.) Loosely, the last quarter of the 19th-century and the first quarter of the 20th-century comprised the period for the development, heyday, and demise of Panbabylonism.

For simplicity the concepts of astronomical mythology can be divided into (1) pre German Star-myth/Panbabylonism period, (2) German Star-myth/Panbabylonism period, and (3) post German Star-myth/Panbabylonism period. Whilst it's hardly ideal it tends to be useful if the German Starmyth/Panbabylonism period from circa 1890 to 1930 is recognised as including non-German star-myth ideas. (Unfortunately the ideas of the German star-myth school now tend to be overlooked.)

Before Panbabylonism there were a number of other theories of a dominant widespread civilizing country/culture which lay the influential groundwork that other countries/cultures later followed. An example is seen in the Egyptomania which arose after the French mission to Egypt under Napoleon. In the late 19th-century and early 20th-century large quantities of cuneiform tablets and their information attracted the attention of scholars.

(1) Development:

Assyriology can be said to begin with the agreement (achieved working independently) between four European scholars (Henry Rawlinson, William Talbot, Edward Hincks, and Jules Oppert) in 1857 on the method for correctly deciphering one particular type of cuneiform script. The early discoveries showed that at the earliest stage of the development of cuneiform writing there was a developed system of mathematics. This and the concept of diffusion of ideas from Mesopotamia (and the concept of star myths) were the basis for Panbabylonism. The Panbabylonism existing in Germany from circa 1904 to 1918 was comprised largely of Assyriologists and cuneiform philologists. Additionally, for much of the 19th-century (and declining by the 1920s) the study of Assyriology was often valued primarily as a means of illustrating the Bible. This period of biblical-Near Eastern comparative research resulted in what Samuel Sandmel has labelled as "parallelomania."

1850-1880:

Discovery of Babylonian Astronomy

In 1847 the German Orientalist Julius Oppert (1825-1905) moved to France and in 1869 was appointed Professor of Assyriology in the College du France. In 1856 Oppert gave the first approximate correct rendering of the Michaux Stone (Caillou du Michaux) which had been brought from Mesopotamia to Paris in 1800. This was one of the earliest decipherments of the new newly discovered language on Babylonian inscriptions.

In 1891 the Reverend Archibald Sayce (1846-1933), a pioneer Assyriologist, was appointed Professor of Assyriology at the University of Oxford and held the position until 1919. In 1874 Sayce published a long and important paper titled the Astronomy and Astrology of the Babylonians (Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Volume 3, Part 1), with transcriptions and translations of the relevant cuneiform texts.

Both Oppert and Sayce were the first to recognise and translate astronomical cuneiform texts.

Notion of Diffusion from Mesopotamia

The idea of Babylonian influence on the Old Testament originated with the discovery by George Smith in 1872 of a Babylonian deluge story, and in 1875 of a Babylonian creation story; both similar to the biblical stories. In 1872 the newspaper announcement by the Assyriologist George Smith (1840-1876) of his discovery of a close parallel in Babylonian cuneiform tablets to the Bible story of the Deluge (he had discovered a Babylonian Noah in cuneiform tablets) served to create a sensation and an unflagging public and professional interest in the subject of Assyriology in both Europe and North America. Smith announced that the Bible deluge story was merely a Hebrew adaptation of an older Babylonian story. ("The Chaldean History of the Deluge." appeared in The [London] Times, Number 27551, 4th December, 1872; and "The Chaldean Story of the Deluge." appeared in The [London] Times, Number 27552, 5th December, 1872.) Also triggered by Smith's discovery was an ongoing debate in Britain on the origin of culture and religion that engaged such scholars as James Frazer and Edward Tylor. (Smith first read a paper on his discovery to the December 3rd, 1872, meeting of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. His paper "The Chaldean Account of the Deluge." appeared in The Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Volume 2, 1873, Pages 213-234.) In 1874/1875 he translated and pieced together the Babylonian creation story. The results of this further work by Smith was published in his book The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876). Because the earlier Babylonian creation and deluge accounts were so similar to the biblical accounts it was recognised that the Bible narratives had been influenced by the Babylonian accounts.

The German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch was in London at the time of the books publication and considered it to be an epoch-making book. He persuaded his brother Hermann to translate the text into German. The result was the book also appeared in a German edition in 1876; with a preface and afterward by Friedrich. Friedrich Delitzsch held that the Deluge accounts derived from a single source.

The closest similarities between Mesopotamian myths and the Old Testament lie in the Flood stories. In the pioneering period of Assyriology most scholars assumed the primacy of Hebrew ideas over those of the Babylonians. Interestingly, both Babylonians and Hebrews the Flood marked the end of an age.

Babel-Bibel Controversy

For a long time the believed distinctiveness of the religion of Israel was supposed to lie precisely in its seclusion from foreign influences. The German Orientalist Eberhard Schrader (1836-1908) was the first scholar to publish, in his book Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (1872), a compilation of what he believed were elements in the Old Testament that were borrowed from Babylonian religion. The commentary was arranged by canonical order of the Old Testament books. His commentary moved through each chapter and verse of the Old Testament, stopping at each verse where comparative philology, mythology, geography, or historical examples could shed light. It displayed a wide knowledge of the history of the ancient Near East and also of ancient languages. An English-language translation by Owen Whitehouse, of the second enlarged German edition, appeared in 1885-1888. (The German-language work was subsequently issued in revised form in 1903 by the German Assyriologists Hugo Winckler and Heinrich Zimmern. Needless to say they rewrote it in the interests of Panbabylonism. Schrader's 3rd-edition by Zimmern and Winckler was permeated with the tenets of Panbabylonism.)

Babel-Bibel proponents have been carelessly identified by many modern historians with the Panbabylonists and the Star-myth School. To identify the Babel-Bibel School with the Panbabylonist School is too simplistic, they were not really identical. To an extent the Babel-Bibel-Streit did originate from the tenets of Panbabylonism. The Panbabylonists held that all major myths throughout the world derived from a system of narratives created in Babylon/Mesopotamia circa 5000-3000 BCE. In the Babel-Bibel diffusionist scheme certain features of stories within the Bible are identified earlier Babylonian literature.

1881-1889:

Discovery of Babylonian Astronomy

The German Jesuit Joseph Epping (1835-1894) was the founder of the study of cuneiform mathematical astronomical texts. In 1876 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the Jesuit College at Blijenbeck Castle, Holland.

When arriving at Blijenbeck Castle in 1881 to work on his Alphabetisches Verzeichniss (published in 6 parts, 1882-1886) the German Jesuit Johann Strassmaier (1846-1920), an Orientalist and leading pioneer in Assyriological studies, sought the help of Epping to understand the cuneiform mathematical astronomical texts he had been copying in the British Museum since 1878; particularly the ones he had come across that year and several of which were dated.

Epping initially succeeded in 1881 in understanding the concluding columns of a lunar ephemeris (BM 34033). The end results of studying further cuneiform mathematical astronomical texts in the British Museum that were copied by Strassmaier were published by Epping in his small book Astronomisches aus Babylon (1889).

Notion of Diffusion from Mesopotamia

In the late 19th-century the idea of cultural diffusion throughout history was influential in Germany. Questions gradually polarised into a debate over polygenesis versus monogenesis. This helped lead the way to Panbabylonism. In 1889 the German Orientalist Carl Lehmann-Haupt (1861-1938), Professor of Ancient History at the University of Innsbruck, submitted a paper titled Das altbabylonische Maass- und Gewichtssystem als Grundlage der antiken Gewichs-, Münz- und Maassysteme [The Old Babylonian System of Volume and Weight as the Foundation of the Ancient System of Weight, Coinage, and Volume] to the 8th International Congress of Orientalists meeting in Stockholm. (See: Actes du Huitième Congrès International des Orientalistes, Tenu en 1889, Section I: Sémitique et de L'Islâm, Pages 165-249.) The paper resulted in the general acceptance of the notion that a single system of measures spread throughout the world by diffusion from Mesopotamia. The further influence of the paper was that it was also reasonable to infer that scientific thinking spread by diffusion from Mesopotamia. Hence, during the 1890s there was the development of the notion of diffusion of culture from Mesopotamia. This was to influence the star-myth school of both Ernst Siecke and Eduard Stucken.

Astronomical Interpretation of Mythology

Beginning circa 1880 various academics and popular writers began to publish astronomical interpretations of mythology. For example: Theogonie und Astronomie by Anton Krichenbauer (1881). The author (1825-1884), a classical philologist, interpreted Homer's Iliad as an astronomical allegory. The sun-myth theory of Ignác Goldziher, Mythology Among the Hebrews and its Historical Development (1877), depended largely on etymologies and was discredited soon after its appearance.

1890-1899:

Babel-Bibel Controversy

In 1891 the Assyriologist Heinrich Zimmern published an article (in Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Band 11) in which he claimed that the feast of Purim, mentioned in the Old Testament only in the Book of Esther, is of Babylonian origin.

In 1892 the Assyriologist Peter Jensen published two articles on Elamite proper names (in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes) in which he claimed (1) that the names Haman and Vashti in the Book of Esther are the names of Babylonian deities, and (2) that the names Mordecai and Esther (in the Book of Esther) are the Babylonian deities Marduk and Ishtar; and Hadassa, a Babylonian word for bride, is another name for Esther. (Writing in 1908, George Barton identified Jensen's 2 articles as the beginning of Panbabylonism. However, several other German scholars published similar articles at this time.)

In 1895 Hugo Winckler published Volume 1 of his Geschichte Israels in Einzeldarstellung. In this volume Winckler viewed the history of Israel from the standpoint of Eberhard Schrader's Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (1872). Between circa 1895 and 1900 Winckler also published various minor writings on the history of Israel from this same standpoint. Also in 1895 Hermann Gunkel (1862-1932) published his book, Schöpjung und Chaos, Urzeit und Endzeit. In this study, largely dealing with the New Testament Book of Revelation, Gunkel also attempted the trace the influence of the Babylonian creation-myth in the Bible. Gunckel identified analogies between the dragon in the Babylonian creation epic and the dragon in the Book of Revelation. Gunkel sought support in Jensen's arguments concerning Babylonian proper names in the Book of Esther.

In 1896 Heinrich Zimmern published the "Babel-Bibel" pamphlet Vater, Sohn und Fürsprecher in der babylonischen Gottesvorstellung. It presented many ideas that were to be later expressed in 1902 by the German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch in his lecture series. However, because of limited readership it - and similar publications from a number of other authors in the 1890s - did not create controversy.

In 1899 Hugo Winckler published Das alte Westasien. Both this publication and Winckler's earlier Geschichte Israels in Einzeldarstellung (Volume 1, 1895) precipitated the 1902 "Babel-Bibel" controversy by the Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch.

Star-Myth Movement

The German folklorist Ernst Siecke (1846-1935) was the real founder and most active supporter of the star-myth movement. In 1892 Siecke published his Liebesgesschichte des Himmels. This was the first of his many books and pamphlets supporting an astronomical interpretation of mythology. The result of his publications was that interest in star myths generally and the particular interest in Babylon had a mutual affect on each other and resulted in their combining together.

In 1892 the German Assyriologist Heinrich Zimmern published a paper "Der Jakobssegen und der Tierkreis." (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Verwandte Zimmern, Siebenter Band, Pages 161-172) in which he showed his willingness to consider astronomical interpretations of Biblical literature.

The Star-Myth Movement laid emphasis on the predominant importance of the Moon ("Panlunarism") and also the sun.

The astro-mythological school of biblical interpretation began with the publication of Eduard Stucken's Astralmythen. The German Orientalist Eduard Stucken (1865-1936) began publication of his Astralmythen (5 parts, 1896-1907) on world mythology. (Part 1, 1896, Abraham; Part 2, 1897, Lot; Part 3, 1899, Jacob; Part 4, 1901, Esau; Part 5, 1907, Moses.) The work of Stucken, Astralmythen, Part 1, Abraham, and Part 2, Lot, began the idea that the origin of much of Hebrew culture lies in Babylonian mythology. Stucken had intellectual connections with the star-myth school of Siecke in that he adopted the methods of the star-myth school. However, Stucken (an amateur philologist) knew no restraint and attempted to trace the whole system of world myths (at least those he believed to be astral) back to Babylon. It was the work of Stucken that paved the way for the attempt to make Babylonia the prime centre of all religious thought. Stucken held that the Pleiades was the key to the worldwide diffusion of astral myths from Babylonia. On the basis of cuneiform texts Stucken believed he could identify a calendar reform in 2800 BCE as the precise dated when astral myths began diffusing from Babylonia. Stucken believed the calendar reform was connected with a vernal equinox occurring in the constellation "Taurus" (to which the Pleiades belonged) in 3000 BCE.

The Star-Myth Movement and the Panbabylonian Movement affected each other mutually. The Star-Myth movement was the earlier of the two and the Panbabylonian Movement arose from within its ranks. Panbabylonism adopted the Star-myth school ideas of a highly developed astral-mythological scheme underlying the religions of both the Old and the New Worlds. The Panbabylonists further developed the tenets of the Star-Myth school specifically the mythological studies of Eduard Stucken. The Pleiades and the Zodiac, not the Moon and the Sun, were emphasised in Panbabylonism.

The Elamite scholar Georg Hüsing belonged partly to the Star-Myth School and partly to the Panbabylonian School. Hüsing derived all myths from Elam.

Panbabylonism

The nature-mythology theory was continued by the astral-mythological school of Panbabylonism, mainly through the work of Hugo Winckler, Alfred Jeremias, and Eduard Stucken.

The sources for old Babylonian religion included an emphasis on, both actual and imagined, astronomical and meteorological phenomena. When the notion of diffusion was added on we had Panbabylonism. The religious nature of scientific knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia was quickly recognised from the earliest studies of cuneiform scientific texts. This - and building on the claims of the amateur comparative mythologist Stucken - was the foundation for the Panbabylonist claim for the existence of astral religions.

The first person to publish a major work setting out Panbabylonist ideas was Eduard Stucken whose Astralmythen (Part 1) appeared in 1896. It was originally his (abandoned) doctoral dissertation. Stucken sought to prove that all the mythologies of the world were based on astral-lore encrypted in Mesopotamian myths. The theory that astral elements in a variety of religions/mythologies showed they had a common origin was the core of Panbabylonism.

The ideas of the German Assyriologist Hugo Winckler (1863-1913), a Cuneiform Philologist and Professor at the University of Berlin, were to lead to the school of thought termed Panbabylonism. (The term "Pan-Babylonianism" was apparently first used by Alfred Jeremias in 1906.) Panbabylonism was largely spread through the efforts of Winckler. (The term "Panbabylonism" was actually coined by the critics of the Winckler-Jeremias school of astral diffusion from Babylon but became adopted by them.) Winckler was to become the leader of the main Panbabylonist movement (distinct from episodes such as Friedrich Delitzsch and the Babel-Bibel controversy, and the independence of the German Assyriologist and Panbabylonist Peter Jensen). Winckler began actively propounding his developing theories all through the 1890s. At the beginning of 1890 Winckler had not systematically worked out the details to his approach to comparative mythology. He produced and edited the periodicals Altorientalische Forschungen (3 volumes, 1893-1906), and Kritische Schriften (6 volumes, 1898-1907) which were the original mouth pieces for his emerging Panbabylonist views. His early book Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens (1892) also marked the start of his emerging Panbabylonist views.

By the early 19th-century the Panbabylonists were claiming Babylonian and also other foreign influences on all parts of of the Bible. In the early 1900s the astral school of Panbabylonism was formed by Stucken, Jensen, Jeremias, Zimmern, and Winckler. (However, Stucken did not pursue an active role with anybody, and Jensen was outside the the initial group cooperation comprising Winckler, Jeremias, and Zimmern.) Other scholars supporting Panbabylonism held mostly non-astral views (or limited astral views) and believed that Babylon had influenced/shaped Israel's civilisation, history, and literature.

Steven Holloway has stated that Winckler's diffusionist model was likely inspired by the ideas of Georg Creuzer set out in his Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker besonders der Griechen (1822, 1-Volume edition).

Generally, the key Panbabylonists (Winckler and Jeremias) tried to show that the most important mythologies and world views of other peoples originated from an ancient system of astral myths diffused from Babylon. Hugo Winckler held that all world myth originated from Babylonian astral religion which had originated circa 3000 BCE. Both Winckler and Jeremias held to the "analogy doctrine" of similarities between Mesopotamia and Israel that were borrowed by Israel from Mesopotamia. Peter Jensen's approach to establishing the case for Panbabylonism was distinctively different. Jensen held that virtually the entire bible was a rewriting of the Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic. According to Jensen Israelite history in the Bible, and the story of Jesus of Nazareth, were simply a series of repetitions (a rewriting) of the Epic of Gilgamesh. He attempted to prove that the prominent figures and key narratives in the Old Testament were based on literary influences from the Epic of Gilgamesh. His case for Panbabylonism made almost exclusive use of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Peter Jensen held that Mesopotamian myths, in particular the Epic of Gilgamesh, were the source of all the mythological patterns (world folk tales) in world literature (including the Bible).

Panbabylonism was in conflict with the evolutionism of the Wellhausen school and was viewed as an attempt to overthrow it. Winkler's work was considered an independent attempt to prove that the archaeological data gained from Babylonian sources overthrow the Wellhausen school. Panbabylonism very much had the effect of being a weapon for undermining the the Wellhausen school of Old Testament criticism. Panbabylonism also replaced the Higher Criticism.

(2) Heyday:

Panbabylonism flourished in Germany between 1900 and 1914. Indeed the Panbabylonists were almost confined to Germany. (Off-shoots of Panbabylonism did appear in England and North America.) Though the founder of the main Panbabylonist movement was Hugo Winckler its short though virulent popularity was largely due to the writings of the German Archaeologist Alfred Jeremias. (Hugo Winckler has been described as the unsuspecting founder of Panbabylonian school of thought. He sided with the diffusionists and argued for monogenesis. It was Winckler who brought coherence to the tenets of Panbabylonism.) Jeremias was a great admirer of Winckler and untiring in both his promotion and defence of Winckler's views on Panbabylonism. The claim that moderate Panbabylonism was represented by Alfred Jeremias seems misplaced.

The initial core of staunch Panbabylonists consisted of Eduard Stucken, Hugo Winckler, Heinrich Zimmern, and Alfred Jeremias. (Simo Parpola has stated that the original group of Panbabylonians consisted of Hugo Winckler, Alfred Jeremias, and Heinrich Zimmern. However, Eduard Stucken and Hugo Winckler had collaborated on a number of publications.) Their ranks were later added to by Peter Jensen (whose Panbabylonist arguments remained largely independent from those of the Winckler-Jeremias school) and Ernst Weidner. (Winckler, Jeremias, and Zimmern had all studied Assyriology at the University of Leipzig under Friedrich Delitzsch. Jeremias spent most of his working life as a Lutheran pastor in Leipzig. As a student he had studied both Assyriology and Theology.) They can be considered an extreme wing of the astral myth school.

Stucken's method was to identify motifs within Mesopotamian stories and then identify correspondences. Stucken based his theory on certain similar features of narratives/myths. Whilst he collected a huge number of parallels from all over the world they largely remain unconvincing. As example, Stucken was unconcerned when matching motifs whether certain features of a historical tale were analogous to certain features of a mythical story. Winckler's distinctive emphasis was the identification of number symbolism. Jeremias placed emphasis on astral symbolism. However, like Winckler, whose methods he adopted, he emphasises in his mythological arguments the role played by numbers. (Later, Jensen was to distinctively emphasise the influence of the Gilgamesh myth. For Jensen, Bible narratives in which he believed he could detect traces of the Gilgamesh saga were unhistorical. He also regarded important events in the gospel stories of Jesus as forms of the Gilgamesh myths. The 4 gospels were "mythographs." Both Jensen and Zimmern failed to distinguish between documents approximately contemporary with the events they record and documents which are centuries removed from the events they describe.) 

1900:

Discovery of Babylonian Astronomy

In 1900 the German Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Franz Kugler (1862-1929) Franz Kugler published his first study of of Babylonian astronomy Die Babylonische Mondrechnung which brilliantly extended the previous work of Epping. By the end of the decade Kugler, a chemist who was appointed to teach mathematics and astronomy at Ignatius College in Valkenburg, had become a competent Assyriologist and single-handedly, and in scholarly isolation, demolished the tenets of the Panbabylonist movement. Most of his academic life was dedicated to the interpretation of cuneiform texts dealing with astronomy and with the related topics of chronology and mythology. The main characteristic of his method was the application of mathematical rigor for which he is still considered unsurpassed today.

Panbabylonism

The foundations of the whole Panbabylonian system were laid (with some reserves) by Winckler. At the end of volume 2 of his Geschichte Israels (1900) Winckler set out for the first time the mythological and astronomical tenets of the Panbabylonian system. In this publication his initial ideas focused on Isaelite legends. In this volume Winckler adopted and extended Stucken's point of view set out in Astralmythen. In volume 2 of his Geschichte Israels Winckler maintained that a large astral entered into Irsael's early national stories. Winckler sought to identify moon gods, sun gods, astral goddesses, and moon goddesses in the biblical stories spanning from Abraham to Solomon. However, Winckler built his argument more upon the recurrence of characteristic numbers than upon parallel motifs. As example: The four wives of Jacob are the four phases of the moon; the twelve sons of Jacob are the twelve months; the seven children of Leah are the gods of the days of the week; Lot is associated with Abraham so the two must be Gemini; Abraham's wife Sarah is also his sister and so are identical with Tammuz and Ishtar (who in Babylonian mythology were similarly related to each other).

Both Winckler and Jeremias (and Stucken) had intellectual connections with the star-myth school of Siecke. Their Panbabylonism movement can be considered a special part of it which put forward particular tenets of their own. Stucken's work attracted the attention of Winckler. Winckler's Panbabylonism owed much to the volumous work Astralmythen (5 parts) by his pupil Stucken (which also had connections to the Star-Myth School of Siecke). It was the work of Stucken which laid the foundations for the Panbabylonist attempt to make Babylonia the prime centre of all religious thought (and grounded in an astral philosophy). (However, similar "Babel-Bibel" conceptions of the Old Testament antedate both these authors.) Stucken (who had studied assyriology but was essentially a writer, artist, and dramatist) had uncritically reached the conclusion that all sagas of all peoples can be traced back to the astral myths, such as the creation-myth, of the Babylonians. Stucken's method was to define myths by their motifs, not by persons or types, and he maintained that as it was motifs that were passed from people to people then only motifs could be used for the purposes of comparison.

The basic astral-myth tenets of Panbabylonism were fixed prior to the large-scale decipherment of Babylonian mathematical astronomical texts. The task of the decipherment of Babylonian mathematical astronomical texts was first begun with the pioneering work of Franz Kugler. The task of fully understanding their intellectual context would only begin nearly 100 years after Kugler began his pioneering work.

1901:

Panbabylonism

Panbabylonism was perhaps first (formally) proposed in the 1901 essay "Die altbabylonische Weltanschauung." by Hugo Winckler, that appeared in the influential (conservative) monthly journal for politics, history, and literature, Preussische Jahrbücher [= Prussian Yearbook/Almanac] (May, 1901) then edited by Hans Delbrück (1848-1929), Professor of History at the University of Berlin, and military historian.

In 1901 Winckler published the booklet Himmels- und Weltenbild der Babylonier. The star-myth aspect of Winckler's Panbabylonism was only fully adopted with this publication. The booklet was very influential within Germany. Outside of Germany the publication attracted very little attention and remained obscure. Winckler contended that the zodiac was recognised when the spring equinoctial constellation was the "Twins" circa 4000 BCE. Also, Winckler believed he had worked out an important element of the ancient "world conception" in the formula Himmelsbild ist Welt and he used the term Entsprechungstheorie to describe the formula as the "theory of correspondence." (See also Winckler's: Die Weltanschauung des Alten Orients (1904).) Himmels- und Weltenbild der Babylonier caught the attention of the Assyriologist Alfred Jeremias who quickly became the major proponent of Panbabylonism.

In his lengthy pamphlet, Arabisch-Semitisch-Orientalisch. Kulturgeschichtlich-mythologische Untersuchungen. (1901) Winckler claimed to have found an astro-mythological basis for many of the stories of early Mohammedanism.

1902:

Babel-Bibel Controversy

The Babel-Bibel controversy involved the extent to which the text of the Bible was dependent on Babylonian culture.

The "Babel-Bibel" controversy broke out in 1902 over two (public) lectures by the German Assyriologist (Semitist/Semiticist) Friedrich Delitzsch (1850-1922). Delitzsch, 51 years old at the time, had established through his numerous publications a reputation as a leading Semitic scholar (and ancient historian). The first public lecture was delivered in January, 1902, in Berlin's renowned Music Academy, in the presence of the German Emperor Wilhelm II and the court. The eventual series of 3 lectures delivered between 1902 and 1904 was titled "Babel und Bible" ("Babylonia and the Bible"). (The German Emperor invited Delitzsch to repeat the lecture for the Empress 2 weeks later at the royal palace.) The second public lecture, also delivered in the presence of the German Emperor, was given in January, 1903. It mainly comprised an answer to his critics. Delitzsch's lecture series was subsidised by the German Oriental Society (founded in 1898).

Delitzsch argued against the independence of the Old Testament. He argued that Israelite traditions were directly dependent on earlier Babylonian traditions. Like the Panbabylonians, Delitzsch argued for an exclusive emphasis on the importance of Mesopotamia for human religion and culture. For Delitzsch, Babylon was the starting-point for the whole of European culture up to the present time. The lectures by Delitzsch brought Panbabylonism into the public arena. Previously the idea of Panbabylonism had been limited to discussions among academics specialising in Assyriology or Biblical studies. (By 1902 Panbabylonism was well established amongst German assyriologists and bible scholars. It was the German Panbabylonists who asked Delitzsch to present his ideas on such in his 1902 lectures.) In his two public lectures Delitzsch attempted to demonstrate the Babylonian origins for many Old Testament beliefs. (Both were published as pamphlets. Babel und Bibel ein Vortrag (1903) and Zweiter Vortrag über Bebel und Bibel (1903). More than 60,000 copies of the first pamphlet were printed, and more than 45,000 copies of the second pamphlet were printed.) The "Babel-Bibel" debate was a debate between scholars. Basically the initial reaction against the views expressed by Friedrich Delitzsch was that of conservative German protestantism. The anti-Semitic aspect of the views expressed by Delitzsch within his arguments did not really heighten until 1908. The Babel und Bibel lectures of Delitzsch raised a furor in Germany. (If the German Emperor had not been present at the 1902 lecture then it is likely that scant attention would have been given to the lecture series.) The "Babel-Bibel Streit" ("Babel Bible Controversy") begun by Delitzsch was the most public controversy of the time. The "Babel-Bibel" controversy was at its height in throughout 1903 and began to subside in 1904. (A 3rd and final lecture was was given in October, 1904.) However, Old Testament studies have been constantly beleaguered by by a number of similar attempts to demonstrate/prove parallels with ancient Near Eastern Culture and religion ever since.

The 1902 lectures by Delitzsch intensified the Babel-Bibel aspect of the Panbabylonism of both Winckler and Jeremias. (Delitzsch's Babel-Bibel view were part of the Panbabylonism movement supported by Winckler.) For several years after 1902 Winckler and Jeremias emphasised biblical studies. After 1902 the application of the Panbabylonian theory to the narrative of the Old Testament is made in detail by both Winckler and Jeremias. In this manner the publications of the Panbabylonists served to continue the Babel-Bibel debate. The Winckler-Jeremias school held that the astral conception of the world and of religion was known in Canaan and was expressed by the Israelite writers in the Old Testament stories especially. The Winckler-Jeremias school held that substantial Biblical narratives are presented under astral forms. (See also, apart from Geschichte Israels (Volume 2, 1900) by Winckler; Winckler in the first half of Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (3rd edition) edited by Schrader; Zimmern in the second half of Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (3rd edition) edited by Schrader; and Jeremias in Das Alte Testament.)

Panbabylonism

Publication of the pamphlet Die babylonische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zur unsrigen by Winckler marks the beginning of numerous publications over the next decade by the group of German scholars who would become known as Panbabylonists.

By 1902 the twin themes of Babylonian influence on the Bible (from George Smith in 1872 through to Friedrich Delitzsch in 1902) and diffusion from Babylon (from Carl Lehmann-Haupt in 1889, through Ernst Siecke in 1892, through to Eduard Stucken in 1896) had been absorbed into the Panbabylonism of Winckler and Jeremias. Before the 1902 lectures by Delitzsch interest in the Panbabylonism of Winckler was confined to limited academic circles in Germany. After the 1902 lectures by Delitzsch the Panbabylonism of Winckler went to extreme lengths in its reduction of the Old Testament to dependency of Babylonian astral mythology.

1903:

Babel-Bibel Controversy

The 3rd revised edition of Die Keilinschriften und das Altes Testament (1903) by the German Orientalist Eberhard Schrader (1836-1908) was rewritten by the co-editors Hugo Winckler and Heinrich Zimmern in the interests of Panbabylonism.

Publication by Hermann Gunkel of Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verständniss des Neuen Testaments (1903). In this radical book Gunkel claimed that the eschatology of the Old Testament prophets and psalmists contain numerous mythological elements traceable to Babylonia. He believed that Israelite eschatology was borrowed from a fully developed Babylonian eschatology. He also regarded the figure of the Jewish Messiah as mythological and of Babylonian origin. The Jewish belief in the resurrection is traced by Gunkel to Egyptian and Persian influence. Astral elements are also introduced to explain apocalyptic material. Many statements connected with the story of Jesus in the gospels are seen as having a mythological basis.

Publication by Wilhelm Bousset of Religion des judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeialter (1903). In the final chapter Bouset claimed that the Hebrews borrowed certain stories from Babylonia as well as astronomy, astrological fatalism, and magic. Bousset also claimed that later Jewish religion took their belief in Satan, and the legends of the Antichrist, from the Persian religion.

In England, where the Panbabylonist theory had received a great deal of public attention, the London Times of February 25,1903, printed a letter in which Wilhelm II answered those who wondered whether he had performed his imperial duty of upholding the Christian faith.

Panbabylonism

After 1900 Winckler found a vigorous and efficient ally in Alfred Jeremias. In his booklet Im Kampfe um Babel und Bibel (1903) Alfred Jeremias first fully and emphatically accepted the hypotheses of the mythological system developed by Winckler. Jeremias followed Winckler in essentials but lay special stress on the notion of zodiacal ages. (The idea of zodiacal eras marked by the (shifting) location of the spring equinox in a constellation and dating back to circa 5000 BCE is not original with the Panbabylonism school but was merely put forward by them with more insistence on the Babylonian origin of such ideas.)

An important work published in 1903, supporting the tenets of Panbabylonism, was Keilinschriften und Babel nach ihrem religionsgeschichtlichen zausammenhang by the German Assyriologist Heinrich Zimmern (1862-1931). Zimmern dealt more with the New Testament. (Winckler, for example, dealt more with the Old Testament.)

In a lengthy letter published in The [London] Times during 1903 the English Assyriologist William St. Chad Boscawen defended the German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch from the growing number of attacks made on him since his two "Babel-Bibel" lectures in 1902.

Critique

Publication of Hermann Gunkel's classic rebuttal-essay, Babyloniern und Israel (1903), to the 1902 lectures of Delitzsch. An early and influential critique of some ideas of Delitzsch. This short essay of approximately 80 pages comprised a point-by-point response to the 1902 lectures of Delitzsch. (An English-language translation by E.S.B. was published in 1904 and another English-language by Kenneth Hanson was published in 2009. Mistakenly believed by some recent scholars, such as Michael Moore, to be a response to Panbabylonism. It was, as Gunkel states, a response to the Babel-Bibel controversy begun by Delitzsch. The Star-Myth school of Panbabylonism developed by Winckler-Jeremias was ignored. Gunkel's focus was the extreme methods of Delitzsch. Of concern also to Gunkel was Delitzsch was denying the independence of the Old Testament.)

1904:

Panbabylonism

In his Die Panbabylonisten: Der alte Orient und die ägyptische Religion (1904) Jeremias agreed with Fritz Hommel in holding that the Egyptian religious system was based on, or derived from, the Babylonian religious system.

In 1904 Alfred Jeremias also published Das Alte Testament im Lichte den Alten Orients (2 Volumes). The later (1911) English translation of this book is the best presentation of Panbabylonism in English. It is a comparativist tour de force. In it Jeremias formulated and firmly grounded the Panbabylonian position, drawing upon his own area of expertise, the Biblical Near East. The book's major goal is to prove that the Old Testament Weltanschauung derives from and is the same as the Babylonian one.

The last of several early flirtations by Franz Kugler (the pioneer of the recovery of much of Babylonian astronomy) with the tenets of Panbabylonism is his essay "Die Sternenfahrt des Gilgamesh: Kosmologische Würdigung des babylonischen Nationalepos." (Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, Volume LXVI, 1904, Pages 432-449, and 547-561). It was an examination of the Gilgamesh epic as astronomical mythology. (A few years later in his Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, Buch 1, (1907) Kugler rejected the article.)

Universal Solar Myth Movement

Publication of Das zeitalter des sonnongottes (1904) by the eccentric amateur anthropologist and ethnologist Leo Frobenius. Frobenius sought an ancient sun myth origin for world-wide mythology. The arguments in this book were to latter influence his last pupil Hertha von Dechend and result in her 1969 book (with Giorgio de Santillana) Hamlet's Mill.

1905:

Panbabylonism

After circa 1905/6 both Winckler and Jeremias retired from debates about the value of Biblical testimony for the Panbabylonist case. By circa 1905 reaction was setting in against the astral theories comprising Panbabylonism. However, the Panbabylonist debate continued and was not a spent force until the time of Winckler's death in 1913. Peter Brown expressed the opinion that with the death of Winkler Panbabylonism was scientifically dead. However, its tenets were never more than pseudo-scientific. After World War 1 it lingered on through the efforts of Alfred Jeremias and Peter Jensen (and, to a lesser extent, Ernst Weidner).

1906:

Babel-Bibel Controversy

Wilhelm Erbt in his book Die Hebraer (1906, Pages 196-201), under the influence of the astral theories of Panbabylonism, suggested that Canticles is a collection of paschal songs of Canaanitish origin. Erbt proposed that Canticles describes the love of the sun-god Tammuz (called Dod or Shelem), and the moon-goddess Ishtar (under the name of Shalmith). His arguments met with little favour.

Hugo Winckler published the booklet, Der Alter Orient und die Bibel. Nebst  einem Anhang: Babel und Bibel - Bibel und Babel.

Panbabylonism

The Panbabylonists organized a "Gesellschaft für vergleichende Mythenforschung" (a society for pursuing the comparative study of mythology, founded in June, 1906 in Berlin), which began the publication of a series, of popular works in advocacy of its views, titled Im Kampfe um den alten Orient. The principal representatives of Panbabylonism (Winckler, Jeremias, and Stucken) were among the founders of the Gesellschaft für vergleichende Mythenforschung ("Society for the Promotion of Comparative Mythology"). Indeed, they were the key founders. (The Star-Myth School with Panbabylonism was established within such. It advocated the so-called astral mythology that was championed by Ernst Siecke.) The Society then proceeded to publish a "Mythological Library." The first volume published was Drachenkampfe: Untersuchungen zur indogermanischen Sagenkunde by Ernst Siecke (1907).

Publication of Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur (volume 1) by the German Assyriologist Peter Jensen (1861-1936). (Volume 2 was published in 1928.) In this book Jensen maintained that the greater parts of the Old Testament (i.e., the Patriarchs and the Prophets) and even the substance of the Gospels (including Jesus) are simply faint echoes of the old Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh. (Jensen expected little support for his views.) It was an uncritical attempt to derive all ancient myths from the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic. Apparently it was this book and its doctrines that completely converted Zimmern to Panbabylonism. However, Jensen's book was largely ignored. In Jensen's view the Gilgamesh epic is a story that that deals with the movements of a planet in its conjunction with the fixed stars, and that the story is to be understood in terms of the astrological significance of such. The fallibility of Jensen's multitude of Gilgamesh parallelisms with various world-wide sagas, myths, and tales is that most of such are simply coincidences of detail, sometimes of a very natural and unsurprising character, and sometimes the resemblances are of such a general nature as to be quite useless as convincing evidence. Jensen never formed part of the Winckler-Jeremias school of Panbabylonism and a degree of hostility actually existed between them. Jeremias made clear the Winckler-Jeremias school of Panbabylonism specifically dissociated itself from the claims Jensen made in his highly controversial book on Gilgamesh.

Critique

Publication of "Winckler's altorientalisches Phantasiebild." by Hugo Gressmann (Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Theologie, Band 49, 1906, Pages 289-309). An early and major criticism of Panbabylonism.

1907:

Babel-Bibel Controversy

The 2nd revised edition of Hebräische Archäologie by Immanuel Benzinger (1907) was influenced by Panbabylonism. The 3rd edition appeared in 1927.  

Discovery of Babylonian Astronomy

Kugler begins publication of his monumental Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel (2 volumes and 2 supplements, 1907-1924; supplement 3 by the German Assyriologist Johann Schaumberger, 1935). Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel [Star Science and Star Beliefs in Babylon] was the masterwork that recovered Babylonian astronomy. (Kugler's projected 4 volumes of Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel was unfortunately never completed.) Kugler demonstrated that the idea of a highly developed scientific astronomy in ancient Mesopotamia was untenable. Kugler showed that a highly developed astronomy did not originate at the beginning of Babylonian civilization but quite at the end of it - after circa 700 BCE. After World War I the open controversy between Kugler and the Panbabylonists was not renewed.

Panbabylonism

Publication of the book Die babylonische Geisteskultur by Hugo Winckler in which he set out for the general public the main ideas of Panbabylonism.

In 1907 the journal Im Kampfe um den alten Orient: Wehr- und Streitschriften was established by Winckler (and edited by Winckler and Jeremias) to specifically further the cause of Panbabylonism. It largely avoided mythological arguments and the focus was on arguments based on cuneiform philology. Also, when the German Assyriologist and Panbabylonist Felix Peiser (1862-1921) became editor of Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, the German journal dedicated to ancient Near Eastern studies, Winckler and the supporters of Panbabylonism dominated its content.

Publication of the second edition of Die Panbabylonisten: Der alte Orient und die ägyptische Religion (1907) by Alfred Jeremias. The second edition gained great currency and was akin to a Panbabylonian textbook.

The German archaeologist Immanuel Benzinger (1865-1935) was converted to the ideas of Panbabylonisn by both Winckler and Jeremias. Benzinger's book Hebräische Archäologie (1894) was revised (1907) to include the Panbabylonian concepts of Winckler and Jeremias. This 2nd edition was permeated with its tenets.

Critique

In his Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, Buch 1, (1907) Kugler first set out his firm opposition to the tenets of Panbabylonism.

1908:

Critique

The ethnologist and historian Wilhelm Schmidt quite early set out to refute Panbabylonisism. His 1908 19-page pamphlet (off-print) Panbabylonismus und ethnologischer Elementargedanke was originally published as a journal article in: Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, Band XXXVIII, (der dritten Folge Band VIII).

In his "President's Address" (Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, 1908, Volume 1, Pages 231-248) the American Semiticist Morris Jastrow Junior criticised the "Babel-Bibel" aspect of Panbabylonism. (At least one current academic mistakenly believes that Morris Jastrow Junior was a proponent of Panbabylonism.)

1909:

Panbabylonism

Publication of the monograph Moses, Jesus, Paulus: Drei Varianten des babylonischen Gottmenschen Gilgamesch by Peter Jensen. It continued the extreme claims he made in his book published three years earlier (i.e., particularly focused on his assertion that Gilgamesh was the ancient prototype of the Bible figures Moses, Jesus, and Paul).

Critique

Publication in the journal Anthropos of the trenchant article against Panbabylonism Auf den Trümmern des Panbabylonismus [On the Ruins of Panbabylonism] by Kugler. The article was a critique of a volume in the series Im Kampfe um den alten Orient: Wehr- und Streitschriften. (The Panbabylonist Alfred Jeremias replied the same year with the 2nd edition of his 1908 booklet Das Alter der babylonischen Astronomie (1909).)

In his Geschichte des Altertums (Erster Band. Zweite Abteilung: Die ältesten Geschichtlichen Völker und Kulturen bis zum sechzehnten Jahrhundert), (1909, Page 309), the prominent German philologist and historian Eduard Meyer wrote a trenchant criticism of Panbabylonism.

In the USA the Semiticist Albert Clay spent the first half of his book Amurru: The Home of the Northern Semites specifically critiquing the claims of Panbabylonism and arguing against a Babylonian origin for the religion and culture of Israel. (He was the leading opponent of Panbabylonism in North America.) Interestingly, Clay proposed the Israelites were descended from the Semitic Amurru.

1910:

Babel-Bibel Controversy

The German Assyriologist Heinrich Zimmern (1862-1931) collected a mass of material from Babylonian sources which he used in an attempt to prove that the "Christusmythe" is derived from the legends of the Babylonian god Bel-Merodach [Bel-Marduk]. (Or, more exactly, simply a repetition of such.) Hermann Zimmern held that the New Testament mirrored the Babylonian Creation Epic and that the "myth of Bel-Marduk of Babylon" formed the basis for the story of Christ's Passion. His arguments were set out in his book Zum Streit um die Christusmythe (1910) but actually appeared as early as 1901.

Critique

Publication of the trenchant book against Panbabylonism Im Bannkries Babels [In Babylons Binding Spell: Panbabylonian Constructions and Facts of Historical Religions] by Kugler. The book was an expansion of his 1909 article in the journal Anthropos. In this book Kugler solidly rejected his previous astral interpretation of the Gilgamesh epic undertaken in his 1904 article.

In his article "Panbabylonianism." (The Havard Theological Review, Volume III, 1910, Pages 47-84) the American theologian Crawford Toy made a lengthy criticism of the "Babel-Bibel" aspect of Panbabylonism.

In his standard volumes The History of Babylonia and Assyria (2 Volumes, 1910-1915) the English Assyriologist Leonard King showed his disbelief in Panbabylonism by simply ignoring Panbabylonist tenets.

1911:

Babel-Bibel Controversy

Publication of Grundsteine zur Geschichte Israels (1911) by Martin Gemoll. The author showed he belonged to the mythological school of Winckler and Stucken.

Panbabylonism

Publication of an English-language edition of the book Das Alte Testament im Lichte den Alten Orients (2 Volumes) by Alfred Jeremias. The English title was The Old Testament in the light of the Ancient East (2 Volumes). The translator was the Assyriologist (and Church Canon) Claude Johns (Master of St. Catherine's College, Cambridge) who, in his Editor's Introduction, confirmed his leaning towards the tenets of Panbabylonism. However, he he did not hold extravagant Panbabylonist views.

Critique

Publication of the booklet Astronomie, Himmelsschau und Astrallehre bei den Babyloniern by Carl Bezold. The booklet gave support to the criticisms of the Panbabylonist position made by Franz Kugler.

Publication in 1911 of Das Gilgamesh-Epos by Arthur Ungnad and Hugo Gressmann. It was an important study at the time of its publication and it included a critical lengthy discussion of possible astronomical elements in the Gilgamesh epic.

1913:

Star-Myth Movement

Publication of the monograph Der Ursprung des Alphabets und die Mondstationen by Eduard Stucken (1913). (See the extensive (German-language) review by Anon in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, Volume XVII, 1914, Number 5, Columns 210-215.)

Panbabylonism

The first edition of Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur by Jeremias appeared. In spite of its title it is mostly concerned with astronomy (and indulges in considerable speculation). In spite of being regarded as unreliable it quickly gained a wide and popular audience.

Critique

Publication of Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel. Ergänzungen zum Ersten und Zweiten Buch. I. Teil by Franz Kugler. It contained a further critique of Panbabylonism and a discussion of the origin and date of scientific astronomy in Babylon.

1914:

Panbabylonism

In 1914 the cuneiform philologist Ernst Weidner (1891-1976) entered the fray on the side of the Panbabylonists. After the publication of Im Bannkries Babels (1910) by Kugler the ranks of the Winckler-Jeremias Panbabylonism movement received support in the person of the very young Weidner who was not only expert in cuneiform languages but was also proficient in astronomy and mathematics. As a young Assyriologist Weidner was influenced very early by the Assyriologist and Panbabylonist Felix Peiser (who was editor of the journal Orientalistische Literaturzeitung). However, It appears that Weidner was a student of both Felix Peiser and Alfred Jeremias. The monograph (published by the Winckler-Jeremias movement) Alter und Bedeutung der babylonischen Astronomie und Astrallehre (1914) by Weidner was intended to be a refutation of Kugler's main contention regarding the falsehood of Babylonian knowledge of precession and the phases of Venus. Kugler responded with a highly critical review of the monograph.

Critique

Short critique of Panbabylonism in opening chapters of Pantheon Babylonicum (1914) by Nicolaus Schneider, an Assyriologist.

The core Panbabylonists, who were Assyriologists, tended to readily dismiss critics who were not Assyriologists. By 1914 (the end of the hey-day of Panbabylonism), in order to contest the Panbabylonists, an increasing number of Catholic priests had undertaken appropriate studies to become directly involved in Assyriology, especially the structure of cuneiform grammar/vocabulary. These included the Franciscans Engelbert Huber, Anastasius Schollmeyer, and Maur Witzel. Included in the publications, Huber wrote Personennamen aus der Zeit der Konige von Ur und Xisin (1907); Schollmeyer wrote Sumerisch-babylonische: Hymnen und Gebete an Shamash (1912); Witzel wrote Untersuchungen über die Verbalpräformativa im Sumerischen nebst zahlreichen Hinweisen auf die Verbalaffixe (1912). (This last publication was a dissertation on the prefixes of the Sumerian verb).

(3) Demise:

The Panbabylonists were unable to answer the many criticisms of Franz Kugler. Mircea Eliade stated: "Around 1910-1912 the German astral-mythological and pan-Babylonian schools were declining." The Panbabylonian controversy ended with the death of Hugo Winckler in 1913 and Panbabylonism was scientifically dead by the end of World War 1. The final publications were Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur by Jeremias, and Alter und Bedeutung der babylonischen Astronomie und Astrallehre by Weidner (and also Handbuch der babylonischen Astronomie by Weidner). Following World War 1 Jeremias spent his time mostly updating his key publications and produced only a few new pamphlets. In the mid-1920s Panbabyloniasm continued to receive the support of some influential scholars but was not nearly so dominant as it was by the time of the First World War. By the 1930s it had gradually faded into being a historical curiosity.

Apparently, the topic of Panbabylonism did increase interest in the study of astral omen in cuneiform texts.

1915:

Panbabylonism

Publication of Handbuch der babylonischen Astronomie by Ernst Weidner. Written from the Panbabylonian viewpoint. First volume of a planned multi-volume work on Babylonian astronomy. The other volumes were never proceeded with. Though published in 1915 the book had actually been written and printed in 1913.

1918:

Neutral

Publication of lengthy paper "Historical and Mythical Elements in the Story of Joseph." by W. F. Albright (Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 37, Number 3/4, (1918), Pages 111-143). After an initial flirtation with Panbabylonism, Albright rejected its tenets. (Among other things, Albright, during his support for Panbabylonism, made an imaginative connection between Abraham and the Habiru.)

1920:

Babel-Bibel Controversy

Die grosse Täüschung [The Great Deception] by Friedrich Delitzsch (2 volumes, 1920/21). In this book Delitzsch claimed that many of the prominent stories in the Old Testament must be interpreted as astronomical information and that this information was derived from Babylonian scientific astronomy. The book was strongly anti-Semitic. In this diatribe against Judaism Delitzsch tried to prove, amongst other things, that Jesus had not been Jewish but a Galilean Aryan instead.

1923:

Precession

Publication of Berossos und die babylonisch-hellenistische Lieratur by Paul Schnabel. In this book he tried to demonstrate that precession was discovered by the Babylonian astronomer Kidinnu.

1924:

Panbabylonism

Publication of the 68 page booklet Gilgamesh-Epos: judäische Nationalsagen, Ilias und Odyssee by Peter Jensen.

1926:

Critique

The German historian of religion and Old Testament scholar Hugo Gressmann (1877-1927) was a staunch opponent of the Panbabylonist movement. One of his early critiques of the ideas of the movement was set out in the article "Babylonische-Assyrische Texte" with Erich Ebeling in their book Altorientalische Texte und Bilder zum Alten Testament (1926).

In 1926 the acclaimed German Assyriologist Benno Landsberger gave a inaugural address when he was appointed Associate Professor of Assyriology at the University of Leipzig. (This was published as "Die Eigenbegrifflichkeit der babylonischen Welt." in Islamica, Band 2, 1926, Pages 355-372.) The address and paper was a benchmark reaction against the comparative methods underpinning the Babel-Bibel Controversy initiated by Friedrich Delitzch. Benno Landsberger sought to ensure that Mesopotamian culture was investigated on its own terms. He called for the the study of Mesopotamian culture for its own sake - not for the purpose of the comparative approach to the Old Testament, and its superficialities, implemented by the Panbabylonist movement. This address finally put an end to Panbabylonism. 

1927:

Precession

In his article "Kidenas, Hipparch und die Entdeckung der Präzession." (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Verwandte Gebiete, Neue Folge, Band 3 (Band 37), 1927, Pages 1-60) Paul Schnabel revisited and expanded the arguments in his 1923 book regarding his belief that the Babylonian astronomer Kidinnu was the discoverer of precession.

1929:

Panbabylonism

Publication of Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur (volume 2) by the German Assyriologist Peter Jensen. (The external cover has the publication date of 1929 and the inside page has the publication date of 1928.)

The second edition of Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur by Jeremias also appeared.

These were the last substantial publications by Panbabylonists.

1930:

Critique

By the beginning of the 1930s the extent and importance of Egyptian influence on the Levant had become obvious and provided an antidote for the ideas of Panbabylonism. 

(4) Resurgence of Panbabylonism:

1932:

Panbabylonism

Publication of the Panbabylonian pamphlet, Der Kosmos von Sumer (1932) by Alfred Jeremias. This was the last Panbabylonist publication by Alfred Jeremias (appearing 3 years before his death).

Precession

Publication of the doctoral thesis Die Kultrichtung in Mesopotamien (1932) by Günter Martiny, an architect and later medieval building archaeologist. He argued (unsuccessfully) for the precessional realignment of Babylonian temples.

1935:

Astral Mythology

In his Archaeological History of Iran (1935) the German Philologist and Archaeologist and Iranian expert Ernst Herzfeld maintained the localities for the most ancient Iranian myths are not on earth but in the heaven and later the gods became heroes with their places in the heaven projected onto the earth (Page 18). (Ernst Herzfeld was a Professor at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin.)

1939:

Panbabylonism

The Panbabylonist ideas were also fostered by the writer Lord Raglan (Fitzroy Somerset, 4th Baron Raglan, 1885-1964) in his small book How Came Civilization? (1939). He insisted that all higher culture and civilization came from southern Mesopotamia.

1951:

Panbabylonism

Publication of the original French-language edition of Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircia Eliade (The revised and expanded English-language edition was first published in 1964.) It was one of a number of books on the history of religions (especially by the so-called phenomenologists of religion) that showed the influence of Panbabylonism. (In his publications Eliade drew a number of ideas from Panbabylonism.)

The theory of an original diffusion of ideas from proto-historical Mesopotamia, as set out by Henri Frankfort in his book The Birth of Civilization in the Near East (1951) is quite different to Panbabylonism.

1957:

Panbabylonism

In his article "Survivances de l'ancien Orient dans l'Islam (Considerations generales)" in Studia Islamica, 1957, Volume 7, Pages 47-75, the Spanish Orientalist César Dubler draws on some of the Panbabylonist ideas of Hugo Winckler to explain the religious ideas of the Bedouin nomads. (However, César Dubler cannot be classed as a Panbabylonist.)

1958:

Panbabylonism

In his book Das Weiterlebendes des Alten Orients im Islam (1958; Pages 5-6) the Spanish Orientalist César Dubler again draws on some of the Panbabylonist ideas of Hugo Winckler to explain the religious ideas of the Bedouin nomads.

1963-2004:

Precession/Panbabylonism

The publication of Les Cycles du Retour Éternel (2 Volumes, 1963).by the French writer Jean-Charles Pichon contained the twin themes of an ancient zodiac and precession underlying the origin of world-wide mythical themes.

The publication of Hamlet's Mill (1969).by Giorgio de Santillana (USA) and Hertha von Dechend (Germany). The book, basically comprising von Dechend's material edited by de Santillana, contained the twin themes of an ancient zodiac and precession underlying the origin of world-wide mythical themes. The authors held the origin for such lay in the Ancient Near East (i.e., "Babylonia") circa 4000 BCE. The book basically consisted of Hertha von Dechend's poorly organised material for her 1961 and 1966 MIT seminars poorly edited into book form by Giorgio de Santillana when he was ill. Strong influential sources for Hamlet's Mill would have been two Panbabylonian books by Alfred Jeremias listed in the Bibliography of Hamlet's Mill - Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients (3rd Revised Edition 1916 (2 Volumes); and Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur (2nd Revised Edition, 1929). In the former Alfred Jeremias sets out such ideas as: (1) zodiacal world ages due to precession, (2) the change in world ages represented in myths, and (3) the celestial earth in the zodiac (ecliptic).

In her book The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt: An Essay on Egyptian Religion and the Frame of Time (1992; 2nd edition, 2003) the American amateur Egyptologist Jane Sellers applied, with much speculation, the precessional theme of Hamlet's Mill to early Egyptian mythology.

In his book The Myth of Replacement: Stars, Gods, and Order in the Universe (1991) the the American Classical scholar Thomas Worthen unsuccessfully took up the themes of Hamlet's Mill with his own speculative examination of world-wide mythology.

In his book The Secret of the Incas: Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time (1996) the American writer and cultural anthropologist (?) William Sullivan unsuccessfully took up the themes of Hamlet's Mill with his own speculative examination of Inca mythology and beliefs.

In their book When They Severed Earth From Sky Elizabeth Barber and Paul Barber (2004) maintain that myth originated in prehistoric non-literate societies as a vehicle to preserve and transmit information about real events and observations. In Chapter 16: Of Sky and Time they uncritically follow the central theme of Hamlet's Mill by Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha von Dechend. Their arguments are uninformed and wildly speculative. Elizabeth Wayland is Professor of Linguistics and Archaeology at Occidental College, Los Angeles. Paul Barber is a research associate with the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Critique

In an essay published in 1980, "Biblical History in its Near Eastern Setting: The Contextual Approach" (In: Scripture in Context: Essays in the Comparative Method (1980), edited by C. Evans, et al, Pages 1-26), the historian William Hallo called for a balanced approach between the extremes of parallelomania and specialisation/compartmentalisation. Hallo proposed and promoted a contextual approach/method in which similarities as well as differences are examined. This contextual method seeks to weigh similarities and differences and chart diachronic and synchronic variation within and across cultures.

Pan-Ugaritism and Pan-Eblaitism:

The school of Pan-Ugaritism began in the 1930s. In the 1960s the Jesuit scholar Mitchell Dahood was initially an influential proponent of Pan-Ugaritism. The 1970s and 1980s saw the move to restudy the Old Testament in the light of the archaeological discoveries at Ugarit and Ebla in the ancient Middle East. Claims (the origin of which actually dates back to circa 1930) were made for the influence of the Ugaritic language and Canaanite beliefs on the Old Testament language and religion. Later (late 1970s and early 1980s), the scholars Mitchell Dahood SJ, Giovanni Pettinato, and David Freedman expressed ideas that bordered on Pan-Eblaism. Scholars warned that such had the likelihood of repeating the errors and interpretive distortions of the Old Testament in the manner that the "Babel-Bibel"/Panbabylonism movement had done.

Other:

Pan-Elamism:

The Elamite scholar Georg Hüsing maintained the priority of Elam. Georg Hüsing belonged partly to the Star-Myth School and partly to the Panbabylonian School. Hüsing derived all myths from Elam. See his, Die einheimischen Quellen zur Geschichte Elams (1916).

Pan-Amorite School (Pan-Amurrism):

After Panbabylonism came the equally militant, but smaller, Pan-Amorite School of Albert Clay (Pan-Amurrism). See: Empire of the Amorites (1919) by Albert Clay (in which he states his Amurru theory), and  A Hebrew Deluge Story in Cuneiform by Albert Clay (1922).

Pan-Egyptionism:

Some Egyptologists and others have made claims for the influence of Egyptian ideas upon the Old Testament. Two leading Pan-Egyptian advocates of the 1920s were Grafton Elliot Smith (a distinguished anatomist) and Rendel Harris. They held that civilization only arose once - and this was in Egypt - and then spread across the globe. These two English "diffusionist" writers replaced Panbabylonism with an equally all-embracing Pan-Egyptionism. William Perry (British geographer and anthropologist, 1868-1949) was noted for his diffusionist theory of cultural development. According to him Megalithic culture was transmitted to the rest of the world from Egypt. He frequently collaborated with Grafton Elliot Smith. He was also a convinced Heliocentrist. His books include: The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia (1918), The Children of the Sun: a Study in the Early History of Civilization (1923), The Origin of Magic and Religion (1923), and The Growth of Civilization (1924).

Pan-Subaraic

In the early 1900s the German assyriologist Arthur Ungnad developed a Pan-Subaraic theory. (Akkadian term Subaraic = Subartum/Subartu, meaning Assyria.) It was most developed in his Subartu (1936).

Pan-Hurrian School:

The Pan-Hurrian School of the 1930s did not completely materialise.

Myth-and-Ritual School

The so-called Myth-and-Ritual School of the early 20th-century argued that there was a basic religious "pattern" shared by all the religions of the ancient Near East. Some of the early Myth-and-Ritual School scholars were William Smith, James Frazer, Jane Harrison, and Samuel Hooke.

Conclusion:

Friedrich Delitzsch originated 'Babel und Bibel' and never withdrew from his original position set out in his 1902-1903 lectures. His Die grosse Täüschung (2 volumes, 1920/21) is perhaps to be seen as the culmination of his work. His ideas were never widely accepted. Delitzsch's viewpoints were shaped by racial and theological biases. The lecture series (1902 to 1904) was part of an attempt by Delitzsch to prove the primacy of 'Indo-Aryans' in world history. Delitzsch believed the Babylonians were an 'Indo-Aryan' people. Hugo Winckler originated Panbabylonism - and promoted both Panbabylonism and 'Babel und Bibel' ideas. Without the benefit of objectivity, Pan-Babylonianism also claimed Sumero-Babylonian roots for almost every element of Israelite religion (and saw it as an astral religion). Leading German philologists Hugo Winckler, Heinrich Zimmern, Hermann Gunkel, Friedrich Delitzsch, and Peter Jensen staked out different and at times contradictory positions.

Panbabylonism was an episode of pseudo-science in early Assyrian studies. It was an extreme theory of single cultural origins - an example of extreme generalisation. It placed an exclusive emphasis on the importance of Mesopotamia for human religion and culture. All the world's major religions and myths had an astral component and had their origin in the single astral religion of ancient Babylonia. Its tenets were never scientifically established. It has been described as an extreme form of the traditional comparative method. The Panbabylonism movement was characterised by excessive speculation and the absence of rigorous evidence. It was also skillfully popularised by its leading advocates, especially Winckler and Jeremias. The puzzling aspect of Panbabylonism is how such an improbable explanation for religion and mythology became so widely popular so quickly when there was no adequate supporting evidence for most of its claims. (It has been stated that Panbabylonism was never widely popular. However, at the very least, it had considerable successful for circa 2 decades.) The Panbabylonists had continuing difficulty in finding any proof-texts to support their views/tenets.

Claims differ regarding how widely Panbabylonism was accepted. Modern judgments are that it was not widely accepted (but mostly confined amongst German assyriologists of the pre-world War I era. (See: Fictional Akkadian Autobiography: A Generic and Comparative Study by Tremper Longman (199, Page 25).) Recently, the British assyriologist David Brown wrote ("The Scientific Revolution of 700 BC." In: Learned Antiquity edited by Alaisdair MacDonald et. al. (2003)): "More recently the evidence for and against cultural transmission to the biblical and classical world, and to India, has formed the subject of more measured studies attempting to move beyond the simple juxtaposition of similar motifs to the all-important issues of how and why transmission could have occurred - particularly in the fields of myth, divination, and in the exact sciences."

However, the school of Panbabylonism has left a legacy that remains influential still. The parallelomania of Panbabylonism underpins Hamlet's Mill.

Appendix 1: Tenets of Panbabylonism:

The Panbabylonist school is historically rooted in a period of time when the cultural sciences were concerned with questions of the diffusion, migration, and independent or parallel invention of cultural traits. Panbabylonism necessarily involved a diffusionist hypothesis, the world-wide influence of ancient Babylonian religion. The Panbabylonists rejected independent or parallel invention. According to them the theory of independent parallel invention could not logically account for the overwhelming amount of systematic unity that they extracted from their data. Their tenets comprised the belief in: (1) the astral content of major myths, (2) diffusion from the centre that was Babylonia, and (3) the early dating of sophisticated astronomy and astral beliefs in Babylonia.

The Panbabylonist school held:

(1) All myths (they literally included every religion and mythology within their scheme of interpretation) are concerned entirely, or nearly so, with astral phenomena. (Most mythological narratives were held to have an astronomical basis and contain detailed (but hidden) astronomical information.) In particular they are concerned with the course of the Sun, of the Moon, and on occasion with that of the planet Venus, especially in relation to the twelve signs of the zodiac and the stars in them. Winckler argued that a common astronomical world view was predominant in the ancient Near East and that all the gods/goddesses of the ancient Near East were astral figures.

(2) This whole cosmological system was derived from Babylon (or rather a unified Babylon/Akkad) where it was fully developed as early as circa 3000 BCE. From Babylon its influence gradually extended over the entire world. (In this regard the Panbabylonists were hyperdiffusionists.)

(3) In the 3rd millennium BCE the Babylonians held the concept of the universe as a double-sided principle i.e., the astral belief of correspondences that everything on earth corresponds to its counterpart in the heavens.

(4) The Babylonians as early as 3000 BCE knew that the sun moved through the zodiac in a fixed period of time (i.e., the precession of the equinoxes) and were capable of reforming their calendar in accordance with such.

According to the theory of Winckler's school, Babylonian astronomy had reached its highest perfection as early as 3000-2000 BCE. By this period the Babylonians had established:

(a) A constellation scheme.

(b) A zodiacal scheme.

(c) Marked the ecliptic.

(d) A scheme of celestial coordinates.

(e) An accurate calendar.

(f) Knowledge of precession.

(g) A sophisticated mathematical knowledge.

(h) A highly developed astral-mythological scheme.

The foundation of the theory of Panbabylonism was the claim for an early date for scientific astronomy in Babylonia. This entailed knowledge of precession of the equinoxes and a system of astronomical/astrological 'World Ages.'

Appendix 2: Critique of Panbabylonism:

Criticisms:

Panbabylonism is noe regared as discredited speculation. The Panbabylonists were/are criticised for their:

(1) Disregard for textual evidence.

(2) Excessive speculation and absence of rigorous evidence.

(3) Abuse of the argument from analogy.

(4) Wide use of secondary sources.

(5) Wide use of antiquated translations.

(6) Use of a preconceived chronology of Babylonian civilization.

(7) Uncritically argued ideas about an alleged Babylonian "Weltanschauung (i.e., astral philosophy)."

(8) Inability to provide any directly supporting statements contained in texts (i.e., the Panbabylonists could only argue their tenets were implied in widely divergent material).

One of the major flaws of the Panbabylonist school was to argue for a far too early date for the astronomical knowledge of the Babylonians. At the factual/evidentiary level the Panbabylonians placed too great a reliance on the seeming high antiquity of Babylonian astronomical/astrological texts, dating them circa 2000 years too early. Part of the problem lay with a misplaced chronology. Up to circa 1930 Sargon of Akkad was generally believed to have reigned circa 3,800 BCE. This chronological error partly influenced the early dating of Babylonian astronomy by the Panbabylonists to circa 3,000 BCE. During the hey-day of Panbabylonism (early 19th-century) the chronology of early Mesopotamian/Babylonia was in a confused state. Very early dates were mistakenly established (and encouraged by Panbabylonists). Mesopotamian/Babylonian chronology was not suitably stabilized until circa the 1940s. At the turn of the 19th-century Sargon of Akkad was dated to circa 3,800 BCE until decades later circa 2,350 BCE was confidently established. (In one of his publications Jeremias dated Sargon to 2,650 BCE.) Hermann Hilprecht had no problem with dating Enshakushanna, an early king of Uruk, to circa 6,500 BCE. The current dating is circa 2,500 BCE. Prior to the 1950s new material always compelled lowering of dates. (See, for example: "A Third Revision of the Early Chronology of Western Asia" By William Albright (Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research, Number 88, December, 1942, Pages 28-36).

On the theoretical level the Panbabylonists placed too great a reliance on diffusion. Panbabylonists rejected the idea of independent or parallel development. It was held the idea of independent or parallel development was unable to account for the systematic similarity that Panbabylonists were claiming existed. Hence Panbabylonists were preoccupied with diffusion. Panbabylonists such as Winckler conceded that they did not know how ancient Babylonian ideas spread throughout the world.

The evidence shows Babylonian astronomy actually progressed through three phases:

(a) Simple descriptive (3rd millennium BCE): Names and mythic attributes.

(b) Systematic descriptive (2nd millennium BCE): Simple mathematical and positional.

(c) Scientific/mathematical (1st millennium BCE): Predictive and theoretical.

Appendix 2: Prominent Panbabylonists:

Founders:

(1) Star Myth School:

(a) Ernst Siecke (1846-1935) (Germany) Philologist?

(b) Eduard Stucken (1865-1936) (Germany (Stucken was born in Moscow and died in Berlin)) Writer/Amateur Philologist.

(2) Babel-Bible School:

(a) Friedrich Delitzsch (1850-1922) (Germany) Assyriologist/Philologist.

(3) Panbabylonism (Star Myth/Babel-Bible):

(a) Hugo Winckler (1863-1913) (Germany) Cuneiform Philologist. The claim of the German Panbabylonists (especially Alfred Jeremias) that Mesopotamian/Sumerian astrology originated in the supposed zodiacal age of Gemini (circa
5,000 - 6,000 BCE) and is the foundation of all the religions and cultures throughout the world is impossible to maintain. Both Hugo Winckler and Alfred Jeremias claimed the astral theory underpinning the 'Weltanschauung' ('view of the universe') originated in the 'Age of the Twins' (Gemini). Hugo Winkler dated such between 5,700 BCE and 2,500 BCE.

(b) Alfred Jeremias (1864-1935) (Germany) Archaeologist. Alfred Jeremias was not a pioneering assyriologist (though some persons still like to make this claim). After studying assyriology and theology Alfred Jeremias spent most of his life working as a Lutheran Pastor in Leipzig. He basically pursued assyriology as a pastime and only late in life came to hold a permanent university position in assyriology. Following World War 1 Jeremias spent his time mostly updating his key publications and produced only a few new pamphlets. Alfred Jeremias would be judged "odd" by reasonable benchmarks. He held that the various cultures of mankind are no more than the dialects of one and the same spiritual language. He became an admirer of the notorious racist Hermann Wirth who was a Dutch-German lay amateur folklorist and historian of ancient religions and symbols. It appears Alfred Jeremias wasn't above toying with reincarnation and characterising the Panbabylonist Hugo Winckler as an old Babylonian king. Alfred Jeremias (The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient Near East, (English edition (1911), Volume 1, Pages 13 & 71) claimed mythological motifs connecting the beginning of a new era with Gemini (Dioscuros myths) indicate that the zodiac was devised in the 'age of the Twins.' He further claimed: "A planisphere from the library of Assurbanipal [K 8538 (CT 33, 10)], based upon ancient calculations ... show's a graduation of the sun's course and marks for the zero point a point between the Bull and the Twins ("Scorpion's Star, 70 degrees")." Alfred Jeremias concluded that the zodiacal division of the heavens was devised in the 'Age of Gemini' prior to the Sumerian civilisation beginning. Also, he claimed: "In the most remote time upon which we have as yet any historical light, the spring equinox was in the zodiacal sign of Gemini." (See: Ilgauds, Hans-Joachim. (2008). "Der Leipziger Theologe Alfred Jeremias (1864-1935) und die Geschichte der frühen Astronomie." In: Dick, Wolfgang. et al. (Editors). Beiträge zur Astronomiegeschichte, Band 9, Pages 185-204).)

(c) Heinrich Zimmern (1862-1931) (Germany) Assyriologist.

(4) Independent Stream (Star Myth/Babel-Bible):

(a) Peter Jensen (1861-1936) (Germany) Assyriologist. Professor für semitische Sprachen; Professor für orientalische Geschichte (at the University of Marburg). Obtained his Assyriological training at the University of Leipzig under Friedrich Delitzsch.

Supporters:

(a) Georg Hüsing (1869-1930) (Germany) Philologist. Georg Hüsing (born 1869 in Liegnitz, Silesia - died 1930 in Vienna) was a versatile German scholar (primarily a linguist) who among other fields (e.g., German studies, mythology) specialized in Old Iranian and Elamite studies. He was also a Panbabylonist. He studied Oriental languages and ancient history in Breslau, Berlin, and Königsberg, where he took his Ph.D. in 1897 with a dissertation entitled Die iranischen Eigennamen in den Achämenideninschriften. He was a student of the Iranist Friedrich von Spiegel and the Orientalist/Iranist F. C. Andreas (one of the most distinguished Iranological scholars of his time). From 1912 on, he lectured on history of the ancient Near East at the University of Vienna - from 1921 as an associate professor (extraordinarius) (Associate Professor of the Ancient History of the East and Iran). Hüsing was particularly occupied with the study of the history and culture, geography and ethnography, religion and mythology of ancient Iran. He edited and interpreted Elamite inscriptions. His numerous publications have long been outdated. For a critique of Hüsing’s general lunar mythological interpretations of folk narrative, see: “Mondmythologie und Wissenschaft,” by Rudolf Much (Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, Band 37, (1941-1942), Pages 321-261.

(b) Fritz Hommel (1854-1936) (Germany) Semiticist.

(c) Felix Peiser (1862-1921) (Germany) Philologist.

(d) Karl Mücke (1854-1932) (Germany) Philologist.

(e) Immanuel Benzinger (1865-1935) (Germany) Protestant Theologian/Old Testament Scholar/Orientalist. Professor of Old Testament Exegesis at University of Berlin (1898-1902); spent 10 years (1902-1911) teaching (Old Testament Exegesis [?] in Jerusalem at various Christian institutes and at the Ezra Society School) and doing research (excavated at Megiddo from 1903 to 1905) in Palestine; Professor of Bible [Oriental Languages?] at University of Toronto (1912-19125); Meadville (Pennsylvania) (1915-1918); Riga (Latvia) (1921-1935). He was a follower of the Wellhausen school of biblical criticism before later becoming an adherent of the Panbabylonian school. In some ways Panbabylonism was a further development of the (secular) school of biblical criticism of Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918). Its culmination was the Babel-Bibel controversy. Wellhausen challenged the documentary theory of the Pentateuch. He proposed multiple authorship of the texts and also a late date for their composition. Previously scholarship had upheld belief in the very early date of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and believed it had influenced other early cultures.   

(f) Otto Weber (1857-1928) (Germany) Orientalist/Assyriologist. His (German-language) book, Die Literatur der Babylonier und Assyrier (1907) provides a general guide to the literature and ideals of Panbabylonism.

(g) Ernst Weidner (1891-1976) (Germany) Assyriologist. Handbuch der babylonischen Astronomie by Ernst Weidner (1914) was written from the Panbabylonism standpoint and is a veritable wonderland of Panbabylonism. (It was completed several years prior to its publication in 1914, and was in press from 1913.) In Handbuch der babylonischen Astronomie Weidner declared a sophisticated Babylonian astronomy existed at least circa 2,000 BCE, misunderstood and incorrectly used 'The Hilprecht Text' (HS 245) – which he could not date (but is Middle Babylonian Period circa latter part of the 2nd-millennium BCE) - as evidence of an early sophisticated mathematical astronomy (before the Kassite Period), and asserted texts from the library of King Ashurbanipal go back to at least 4,500 BCE. (For Weidner 'The Hilprecht Text,' which he believed likely dated to the 3rd-millennium BCE, provided evidence for an equator-based system of coordinates for measuring the the locations of fixed stars.) Weidner also wrongly claimed that the Babylonians identified the Pole of the Equator and the Pole of the Ecliptic. In Handbuch der babylonischen Astronomie Weidner holds that (Pages 32-34) Nibiru is the Pole of the Ecliptic (= Enlil is the Pole of the Ecliptic), and (Page 97) kakkab MU-SIR-KEŠ-DA = kakkab Niru, is the Pole of the Equator (= Anu is the Pole of the Equator).)

(h) Carl Fries (1867-? (During 1934-1936 he published a number of articles; in 1935 he published in Philologische Wochenschrift; he is indicated as active to at least 1943)) (Germany) Classicist?/Philologist? Was described as an accomplished Orientalist by a book reviewer in The Classical Review.

(i) Ferdinand Bork (1871-circa1950?) (Germany) Assyriologist/Philologist. Ferdinand Bork was an expert on Elamite script.

(j) Paul Haupt (1858-1926) (USA) Assyriologist/Philologist. Paul Haupt was a brilliant Semitic linguist and scholar and pioneer of Assyriology in North America. He was Director of the Oriental Seminary of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.

(k) (Baron) Felix Oefele [Felix Freiherr von Oefele] (1861-1954) (Germany) Doctor of Medicine/Historian.

(l) Fritz Saxl (1890-1948) (Germany) Art historian. Later (1934) moved to England permanently with the relocation of the Warburg Institute from Hamburg to London. Saxl viewed the history of art as the history of the transmission of pagan mythology. He frequently traced the history of many medieval iconographic themes to ultimate origins in Babylonian traditions.

(m) Paul Schnabel (1887-1947) (Germany) Philologist/Historian. Associate Professor/Professor at several universities in Germany. In the 1920s Paul Schnabel wrote articles on Babylonian calendars and astronomy. The German ancient historian and classical philologist Paul Schnabel was born in Steinbach/Thüringia (now Sonnenberg) and died in Schkeuditz). Schnabel studied ancient (Near Eastern) history and classical philology in Leipzig and Jena. He completed a doctoral thesis on Berosus in Jena in 1911. In the following years, until the outbreak of World War II, Schnabel worked as a teacher. After his military service from 1914 to 1918 he taught at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, and was made an associate professor in 1926. He received a scholarship from the Prussian Ministry of Culture until 1930. In 1933 he joined the Nazi Party and in in 1934 was made a lecturer in the history of the ancient Near East in Halle. A nervous disease triggered by a malaria infection ended his career in 1937. His teaching qualification and title of professor were withdrawn in 1938 and he was committed to a mental hospital. Paul Schnabel focused mainly on the history and chronology of the ancient Near East, in particular, Berosus, and ancient geography (including Claudius Ptolemy).

(n) Paul Ehrenreich (1855-1914) (Germany) Ethnologist.

(o) August Wünsche (1839[1838?]-1913) (Germany) Christian Hebraist/Historian. A colleague of Alfred Jeremias. Focused on rabbinic literature (specialising in Jewish mysticism).

(p) Knut Tallqvist (1865-1949) (Finland) Assyriologist. The founder of Finnish Assyriology. Obtained his Assyriological training at the University of Leipzig under Friedrich Delitzsch.

(q) Wilhelm Bousset [Commonly but incorrectly spelled Boussett.] (1865-1920) (Germany) New Testament Scholar/Theologian/Historian (Professor at Göttingen). In the early years of the 1900s, a prominent supporter of the Babel-Bibel school.

(r) Wilhelm Erbt (1876-1944) (Germany) Scholar. Authority on Jewish and Teutonic folklore. In the early years of the 1900s, a prominent supporter of the Babel-Bibel school. In his book Hebraer (1906), however, whilst appearing to accept Winckler's astral theory, he does not make use of it. In this book he also makes limited use of mythological interpretations of Israel's history.

(s) Wolfgang Schultz (1881-1936) (Germany) Philologist. The author was a member of the German "star myth" school. Favoured a lunar interpretation of mythology and iconography.

(t) Anton Deimel SJ (1865-1954) (Germany) Assyriologist. Professor of Assyriology at the Pontifical Institute in Rome. He studied Assyriology under Johannes Strassmaier in London. Tried to show the almost universal influence of Babylon from the 3rd-millennium BCE onwards.

(u) Carl Niebuhr (a pseudonym for Carl Krug). (1861-1927) (Germany) Independent scholar. Editor of Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (daily newspaper published in Berlin from 1861 to 1918; between the 1860s and 1880s it was the official organ of Bismark's government). Carl Krug lived in Berlin and published several learned works on the ancient Near East. Part 5 (Heft 5) of the first volume of Hugo Winckler's "Ex Oriente Lux" contained an essay by Carl Niebuhr. Interestingly, his book, Studien und Bemerkungen zur Geschichte des alten Orients (1894) has, as authors, Carl Krug and Carl Niebuhr. Only one of his books was translated into English, The Tell Amarna Period: The Relations of Egypt and Western Asia in the Fifth Century B.C. (1903). (For details of Carl Krug see: Alashia Revisited (1989) by R. S. Merrillees.)

(v) Martin Gemoll (?-?) (Germany) Academic (Semiticist?/Bible Scholar?). With his publication of Grundsteine zur Geschichte Israels [Foundations of the History of Israel] (1911), comprising 480 pages, Gemoll showed he belonged to the mythological school of Winckler and Stucken. Gemoll assumes that Yahweh was an Aryan god introduced into Canaan by the Aryan Hyksos. (See the (English-language) book review by Lewis Paton in The American Journal of Theology, Volume 17, Number 3, July, 1913, Pages 420-424.) Another of Gemoll's numerous publications, also published in 1911 (Reprinted 2009), was Die Indogermanen Im Alten Orient: Mythologisch-historische Funde und Fragen. (The title in English is Indo-Europeans in the Ancient East: Mythological-historical Discoveries and Enquiries.) The author again followed the Panbabylonians in their astral interpretation of mythology. The book is mostly unreliable.

(w) Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) (Germany) Political Philosopher. Adopted the ideas of Alfred Jeremias that the early Babylonians had an elaborately developed astronomy/astrology and cosmology.

Latter-Day Panbabylonists:

(a) Günter Martiny (1901-circa 1975?) (Germany). Architect/Building Archaeologist.

(b) Lord Raglan [Fitzroy Somerset] (1885-1964) (England) Writer.

(c) Jean-Charles Pichon (1920-2006) (France) Writer/Occultist. Metaphysician and writer whose work is marked by esotericism.

(d) Giorgio de Santillana (1902-1974) (USA) Historian. Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science, M.I.T.

(e) Hertha von Dechend (1915-2001) (Germany) Ethnologist.

(f) Jane Sellers (USA) Writer/Amateur Egyptologist.

(g) Thomas Worthen (USA) Classicist. Retired in 1999 as Associate Professor, Department of Classics, The University of Arizona. Now an Emeritius.

(h) William Sullivan (1946- ) (USA) Anthropologist?/Writer.

(i) Simo Parpola (1943- ) (Finland) Assyriologist/Historian. Currently (2011) Professor of Assyriology at the University of Helsinki. He specialises in the epigraphy of theAkkadian language, and has been working on the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project since 1987. He is also an Honorary Member of the American Oriental Society. His publications include, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (2 Volumes, 1993, Reprinted 2007). One of Simo Parpola's more controversial proposals is the Neo-Assyrians had a form of monotheism (see his essay: "Monotheism in Ancient Assyria."). Since his article: "The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy." (Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Volume 52, Number 3, July, 1993, Pages 161-208) he has revived the Panbabylonian theory. In Parpola's version there was a neo-Assyrian influence on Jewish monotheism and Jewish culture, beginning before the Babylonian Exile and continuing thereafter. Parpola, believes: "[Winckler and Jeremias] ... were well informed in astronomy, astrology .... [and] the facts collected by them are on the whole presented accurately and reliably, and have not lost their validity." One of the main demolition arguments against Panbabylonism, first proposed by Franz Kugler in 1910 and still relevant, is the Panbabylonists base(d) their ideas upon the supposed antiquity of sophisticated Babylonian astronomical knowledge and astrological schemes (5th-4th-millennium BCE). However, Kugler demonstrated that both were quite late in origin (1st-millennium BCE). Simo Parpola has asserted that Peter Jensen is not to be included in the Panbabylonian school because of the rejection of his ideas (largely) by Alfred Jeremias. However, Jensen's scheme has some resemblance to Winckler's.

(j) Rumen Kolev (1960- ) (Bulgaria) Astrologer and astrology software developer, mathematician, and amateur astronomer. Born in Varna (Bulgaria) in 1960; became a naturalised American citizen in 1995. (States he has a BA in Economics (1992); and MD (Doctor of Medicine) (2000) from the Medical Academy of Bulgaria. (Apparently (2007) PhD student at Rousse University, Bulgaria (Department of Computer Systems and Technologies?).) (John Halloran's website has: "He holds a B.A. in Economics and the equivalent in Mathematics from the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. He has spent one year in the Ph.D. program in Economics at UCLA where he studied mathematical models for predictions in Macro Economics and chaos theory. He holds also a MD degree from the Bulgarian Medical Academy in Varna.") Abrasive self-declared expert on Babylonian astronomy and astrology. Trenchant (and ill-informed) critic of most professional assyriologists (both pioneering and modern). Avid supporter of the discredited Panbabylonism of Alfred Jeremias and Ernst Weidner. (Believes Alfred Jeremias was a pioneering assyriologist!) Kolev, who lacks any training or reputation as an assyriologist, chooses to reject modern assyriology (especially the scholarship of outstanding professional scholars such as Neugebauer, Sachs, Pingree, and Hunger) as some sort of conspiratorial fraud to hid their own, and also Franz Kugler's errors, and seeks to frame issues and discussion within the framework of Panbabylonian tenets propagated by Jeremias and Weidner during the period circa 1900 to 1925. Historic issues long over and irrelevant to modern assyriology are regarded as still currently valid. (It is possible that Kolev's beliefs are a radical extension of the more moderate pro Panbabylonian views expressed by Simo Parpola in his 2004 paper "Back to Delitzsch and Jeremias: The Relevance of the Pan-Babylonian School to the MELAMMU Project.") Kolev's Babylonian Astrosophy (Astrosophy meaning literally 'Star Wisdom') is indicated by his statements as involving belief in some form of mystical and causative Babylonian astrology. (His beliefs are set out in his book The Restoration of the Astral Teachings of the Golden Age (2010, 370 Pages).) His Babylonian Astrosophy does not seem to be connected with the tenets of the Astrosophy Research Center founded in 1985 by the German occultist Willi Sucher (1902-1985) who was influenced by the Austrian occultist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). Kolev has developed 2 astrological software programs 'Placidus,' and ' Porphyrius Magus;' and ostensibly 1 astronomy software program 'Babylonia.' Currently (2009) promotes his radical and eccentric ideas through his own journal. (Where he establishes matters to his own satisfaction only.) He rejects the conclusions of modern scholarship (the conclusions of almost all scholars in Assyriology since the end of WWII) as incompetence. He has succinctly stated his own radical chronological framework: "The first coordinate system going back to 5,500 BC [± 300 years] was an equatorial system consisting of 3 circles-paths each divided in 12 sections." (It needs to be noted that Kolev has also claimed it was an ecliptic system. The Mesopotamians did not have a concept of either the celestial equator or ecliptic.) He believes he has correctly dated all (or most of) the Babylonian 'astrolabes' to the middle of the 6th-millennium BCE. His work on heliacal risings and atmospheric extinction has the support of a number of professional and amateur astronomers. However, he is unreliable on issues regarding the history of Babylonian astral sciences. In recounting events connected with his pursuits he views himself as a story-teller and elaborates and embellishes his experiences and changes them into dramatic stories. The 'Placidus Research Center' - of which he is Director - is simply a name for his home-based researches.

The core of Kolev's technique is simply to look for the common period when all the stars (or at least maximum numbers) are in their deemed path/way.

Kolev also has a mystical belief at the core of his approach and beliefs. On October 31, 2010 at ACTastrology.com he posted: "Ultimately, the pre-diluvial Hermes should be no-one, but En Meduranki- the true prophet of God given the true knowledge of Astrology in a Revelation somewhere around 5,500 BC or earlier. More on this will be in my own research on the Babylonian Astrolabe soon to be published in the 'Proceedings of the Melammu VI symposium' [expected in the end of 2010 or early 2011 ….The main topic is the dating of the Babylonian Astrolabe, but one of the consequences of the research is exactly the conclusion: Hermes Trismegistus = En Meduranki. This should be the initial point for the next stage of the research to reconstruct the original teachings of EnMeduranki {since now we have a thread we can follow straight to the begin of mythological time}. " Earlier, January 10, 2009, at ACTastrology.com, Kolev posted: "I started from both ends: from the Renaissance moving back in time and at the same time from the Babylonian moving forward in time, reading in Latin and Akkadian. Since couple of years I was lucky to close in on the center- the Greek-language Astrology. Doing the research on the original texts was an Enlightment ! The whole process of the Astrology stood before my eyes. I saw the bright Light of Enmeduranki- the pre-deluvial proto-Sumerian king (from around 5500 BC according to my research) moving through the latest 7500 years of Time. Enmeduranki- the pen-ultimate king-prophet before the Deluge from Old Sipar received his knowledge directly from the conference of the 'Gods' being lifted there by the Sun-god (Utu) and the god of the Wind (Adad). What I saw was a clear picture of a brilliant Light getting dimmer and dimmer as it approached my own time. [[[ Read my Post in HELLENISTIC ASTROLOGY titled 'HELIACAL APPEARANCES (Phaseis):GREECE/BABYLON' for a very concrete and detailed example of this process that I would call 'Corruption and Profanation of the Astrology-Revelation ' ]]] The Babylonians gave hints here and there, but they kept the secret tradition from the un-initiated with an immense instrumentarium of code-words. They rarely put explanations on their 'paper' of clay tablets. The Greeks though were more fond of talking. I found in their writings many traces of the original Revelation handed to Enmeduranki- the prophet of Astrology."

Kolev's claims have already been uncritically picked up (in a distortive context) and - along with mention of Gavin White's speculative ideas of an early Mesopotamian constellation set - included in The Dawning (2011) by the Australian astrologer Terry MacKinnell (who appears quite uninformed of the critical issues).

Some initial issues: The key is whether the astrolabe texts (and the Mul.Apin series served a calendrical purpose (a system of month-stars established within the scheme of an ideal year) or a divinatory purpose (and was only loosely connected with observational reality). It is difficult to understand why this supposed early system of 36 month-stars did not diffuse to either Elam or Ebla at least. Also, Wayne Horowitz is cited for the claim by Kolev that the celestial system of three 'paths' are mentioned in the Old Babylonian Period. The claim is false. Wayne Horowitz specifically states no Old Babylonian material preserves evidence for either month-stars or the Paths of Anu, Enlil, and Ea. (See: Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (1998, Page 158).) Further, the Ur III period (2112-2004 BCE) (not to be confused with the earlier Uruk III period reaching up to circa 3000 BCE) is generally considered the best documented century in antiquity. It is also termed the Neo Sumerian period or the "Sumerian Renaissance." The tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets that have survived document an immense range of activities. This has resulted in nearly 100 years of intense scholarly work on the Ur III period. Within the context of the active intellectual endeavour recorded at this period no astronomy emerges.

Trying to understand Rumen Kolev's own explanations for how he reached the date of 5,500 BC [± 300 years] for some of the information on 1 or more of the 'astrolabes' (?) - or this date for all of the information on all of the 'astrolabes' (?) - is has proved confusing (and continues to be so). Kolev claims that circa 5,500 BCE is the date when the Path positions of the 36 month-stars in the Astrolabes are correct. It seems he has primarily used the month-star list information in Astrolabe B and used one of his computer programs to precess backwards in time until a 'best match' was achieved between them and the "three ways" (for heliacal rising only (?)). How the set times are dealt with is unknown (i.e., not yet (March, 2010) explained by Kolev). Also, how the planets and circumpolar constellations are dealt with is unknown (i.e., not yet (March, 2010) explained by Kolev). This selective use of data is only one problem associated with Kolev's early dating claims for the 'astrolabes.' A binomial analysis is used for the data. His 2008 presentation "Astronomical Dating of the Babylonian Astrolabe." remains unpublished to date (but is currently being printed, June, 2011). The Proceedings of the Melammu VI Symposium 2008 (containing his presentation) is being printed (June, 2011). (The symposium was organised by the assyriologist Simo Parpola, who is sympathetic of the Panbabylonism of Winckler and Jeremias.) To presently access his claims in detail (March, 2010) Kolev imposes a requirement to purchase his publications. Even though his ideas (1) have not yet been clearly communicated, (2) have not been communicated in any detail, (3) have not been able to be suitably assessed, and (4) have not been acknowledged as accepted by any professional assyriologist; Kolev is confidently treating his claim for the early dating of the Astrolabe star lists as being established.    

The unifying principle behind all the of "Three Stars Each"/Astrolabe class of cuneiform texts is a star heliacally rising in each of the "three ways" during each of the 12 months of the unintercalated 'ideal' year, and that a total of 36 stars astronomically fixed the months of the yearly calendar (i.e., fixed the months astronomically in place). The format for presenting the lists of 36 month-stars was not standardised. The 36 month-star lists could appear in either circular or list format. In the tabular (list) "Astrolabes" (such as "Astrolabe B"), the texts are divided into 12 paragraphs, 3 lines each. Each line contains the name of a star, constellation or planet, the explanation of this name and a number. Each paragraph deals with one Babylonian month and each line with a specific Path of the sky (Path of Ea, Anu, or Enlil). Supposedly, the selected stars, constellations, and planets rose heliacally in exactly that month in that Path of the sky. The Path of Ea (south of -17 degrees declination; first line of each paragraph). The Path of Anu (between +17 degrees declination and -17 degrees declination; second line of each paragraph). The Path of Enlil (north of +17 degrees declination; last line of each paragraph).

Geoffrey Elton (1921-1994) (The Practice of History, 1967) counselled: "Those determined to put their faith in 'sophisticated' mathematical methods and to apply 'general laws' to the pitifully meagre and very uncertain detail that historical evidence often provides for the answering of interesting and important questions, are either to be pitied because they will be sinking in quicksand while believing themselves to be standing on solid earth, or to be combated because they darken counsel with their errors." It will be interesting if the constellation anunitu (formed by part of the stars comprising our Pisces), one of the rising stars of Astrolabe B (and in the Path of Enlil), is included and used. No Sumerian word is used for this constellation, the name appears in Akkadian only. (Another example of the absence of a Sumerian word as a name is the star/constellation tultu "the Worm," in the Path of Ea. Though this is likely to be a late additional/alternative name for an existing constellation.) The Mesopotamian month-star lists comprising 36 stars, and the system of the Paths of Ea, Anu, and Enlil, are connected not only with the "Astrolabe" texts (they originate as the month-stars) but also with the Creation Epic (Enūma Elish), and the omen series Enūma Anu Enlil. Any attempt to date the contents of these documents to circa 5,500 BCE can be dismissed. Both the month-star lists and the texts were being developed at the same period. They date to the time of Assyrian independence and expansion, starting circa 1350 BCE. In this sense all are Assyrian Period documents and there is an interconnectedness between them. (For the Babylonian origin, rather than the Assyrian origin of of the "Astrolabes," see the discussion in Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography by Wayne Horowitz (Pages 158-159). Horowitz concludes the earliest surviving evidence for both the month-stars and the Paths of Enlil, Anu, and Ea dates to the Middle Babylonian Period (1532-1000 BCE) and suggests the first "Astrolabe" was produced at this time.) Also, according to the investigations of Wayne Horowitz, the 10-star tradition (AO 6769) and the 30-star catalogue/list (BM 55502) were a development that preceded the 3 x 12 = 36 month-star lists. Kolev's ideas of the system of 36 month-stars, allocated into 3 defined Paths, dating to circa 5,500 BCE needs to take all of this into account.

Aspects of early lunar and planetary astronomy are embedded in the Enūma Anu Enlil omen series, the content and finalisation of which is clearly dated to the late 2nd-millennium BCE. Astrolabe B is closely related to tablet 51 of the Enūma Anu Enlil omen series. (The ideal Astrolabe is reflected in the Enūma Anu Enlil tablets 50-51.) If the star-list content of the "Astrolabe texts" (which also appear in the Enūma Anu Enlil omen series) are to be dated to circa 5500 BCE then it is odd that astronomical development then remained static for another 4000 years. Also, the earliest Mesopotamian list of relations between months and gods/goddesses seems to be Astrolabe B. Dūzu, the 4th month of the Babylonian calendar, was named after the god Dumuzi ("Dumuzi of Uruk"). The text of Astrolabe B reflects this Old Babylonian tradition (mythology surrounding Dumuzi) referring to the month Dūzu as "the month in which the shepherd Dumuzi, was captured." 

The evidence is against the use - in the late 2nd-millennium BCE - of an 'inherited' use system of 36 month-stars (from 5500 BCE) that was not further developed for some 4000 years. Circa 1400 BCE we had the development/composition of a list of 30 heliacally rising stars, 10 each in the Paths of Ea, Anu, and Enlil. It appears these were the original lists from which both the Astrolabes and the Mul.Apin lists were derived. The Kassite period texts VS 24 120 (from Babylon) and HS 1897 (from Nippur) provide antecedents to Sections 1 and 2 respectively of Astrolabe B. The roughly contemporary text KUB 4 47 Prayer to the Gods of the Night, from Boghazköy, provides the earliest direct evidence for the division of the night sky into the three Paths of Ea, Anu, and Enlil. (Not used, however, is the term harranu (= paths).)

The Stars of Elam, Akkad, and Amurru. There are two cuneiform texts containing lists of 12 stars of Elam, 12 stars of Akkad, and 12 stars of Amurru. (Both were published in Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum, Volume 26, See Plates 40-41 and 44.) The names Elam, Akkad, and Amurru reflect the political situation in Old Babylonian times. The stars of Elam, Akkad, and Amurru are identical with the stars of Astrolabe B and in each text their order corresponds exactly with the order of the twelve months in Astrolabe B. This verifies that the stars of Elam, Akkad, and Amurru are month stars, corresponding to the twelve months of the year. Bartel van der Waerden (Science Awakening II, Page 68) commented: "There is no astronomical principle to be found in the distribution of the stars over the three countries." This is because the system comprises a regional division rather than an astronomical one.

Astrolabe Berlin (Astrolabe B) was discovered by the young German assyriologist  Ernst Weidner amongst the cuneiform tablets collected by the Berlin Museum. Weidner identified Astrolabe B as belonging to the library of king Tilgath-Pileser I. Astrolabe B (= VAT 9416, KAV 218) is a rectangular (list) Astrolabe and is a bilingual Sumerian/Akkadian text. The text of Astrolabe B was copied in Asshur/Ashur in the late 2nd-millennium BCE and is the oldest of the Astrolabes known. (It is thought the tablet was likely copied in the reign of King Ninurta-apil-Ekur (1190-1178 BCE).) Astrolabe B, in contrast to the other Astrolabes known, states explicitly that the stars named rise in their month. According to the assyriologist Wayne Horowitz it appears the content of Astrolabe B is a compendium compiled from independent sources of information.

Part A (Section 1) of Astrolabe B associates each of the twelve months with a constellation, a god, mythological events (rites and rituals), and agricultural activities associated with the particular months. The 'mythological notes' in Part A comprise a bilingual menology for the 12 months of the Babylonian year. For each monthly section the Sumerian-language description is given first and this is followed by the Akkadian-language description. In 10 of the 12 months the first item noted in the Sumerian-language version of the menology is the month-star for that month. Part B (Section 2) of Astrolabe B is a list (star-catalogue) of 36 stars - comprised of 12 stars for each of the Paths of Ea, Anu, and Enlil. Part B usually notes the position of each star by referring to their locations relative to each other, and occasionally refers to the colour of the star, or to particular parts of the constellation. The division into Stars of Ea, Anu, and Enlil (zones approximately parallel to the celestial equator) has scientific characteristics. Part C (Section 3) of Astrolabe B (lines 1-12) systematically lists three constellations in each of the three Paths, for each month (= 36 stars), according to the sequence of their presumed helical rising. The star list is slightly different to that of Part B (Section 2). Part D (Section 4) (lines 13-36) states that the 3 constellations of each month rise in that month, and that three other constellations set (i.e., the constellations in the 7th month from it set in that same month). Part D (Section 4) of Astrolabe B also states that those constellations which it states set are specifically those constellations which rise six months later. This schematic 6 month difference is not astronomically possible. Also, the astronomical theory that non-circumpolar stars rise and set at half-year intervals is false. (Actually it is noted that 34 of the 36 stars set exactly 6 months after rising. Part D, states that all 36 stars with the two exceptions of the planet Venus (mul dili.bad) and "The Plough" constellation (mul apin), set 6 months after rising.) The information in Parts A, B, C and D are unique to Astrolabe B. The information does not occur together in any of the other Astrolabes.

Tom Peters (Hastro-L, 12 November, 2009), struggling with a lack of clear explanation writes a succinct critique: "I gather that Mr. Kolev derives an age for the data of this list by playing around with precession until he gets a best match for actual rising and setting of these stars in some distant past. If this is correct, then this approach is problematic.

- You always get a best match, however poor it actually is.

- The result is completely dependent on your interpretation of the meaning of the data.

As has already been brought forward, how reliable are the identifications of the objects in the list with actual stars? And how sure can we be that it is actually the kind of list that we think it is? Also, any systematic deviation will lead to a (large) error in dating this way - for instance, for what latitude was it made?"

Problems associated with the "three stars each" as star calendars are apparently not dealt with by Rumen Kolev. Firstly, after a lengthy discussion of the issues Hunger/Pingree state (Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia, Page 63): "The "astrolabe" lists provide no information useful for identifying the constellations because we do not know the principles of their categorizations."

There are several significant problems associated with interpreting the "three stars each" lists as identifying ideal heliacal risings. (Only KAV 218 (Astrolabe B) specifically states the listed stars are connected with monthly heliacal risings in the three Paths.) Firstly, the associations of the stars with particular months and also the "three paths" seems to be in part purely religious/mythical. Secondly, some of the month-stars listed are actually planets (i.e., Venus, Mars, and Jupiter), with no annual cycles able to be preserved in the "three stars each" calendrical system. (Planets do not rise in the same position of the sky at annual intervals. Therefore they cannot be used as month-stars if the "three stars each" calendrical system is to be used for more than a single year.) Thirdly, two of the stars (in the northern Path of Enlil) are actually circumpolar (the Wagon and the Fox), and it problematic to see how these could have been used in the "three stars each" calendrical system. (Four more circumpolar stars (making a total of 6) were included in the Path of Enlil in the later Mul.Apin series. The 'fixed-star' catalogue of the Mul.Apin series contains 60 rising and setting stars, 6 circumpolar stars, and 5 planets.)

Heliacal risings are also a problematic issue. Reiner/Pingree in Babylonian Planetary Omens, Volume Two (1981, Page 3) discussing two issues to be understood in relation to 'Astrolabe B' state: "... the association of a constellation with a particular ideal month does not signify that that constellation had its heliacal rising in that ideal month, and that the three paths do not correspond to bands located between certain circles parallel to the equator. ... We presume that these associations with ideal months and with the three paths are influenced by mythological as much by astronomical considerations ...."

Regarding Habasirānu in the Path of Ea. There remains some uncertainty about how to transcribe the Sumerian name of this star/constellation, as well as its exact identity. Various transcriptions such as Hasirānu / Habasirāttu are used. Thought by early assyriologists to be a star name but, perhaps correctly, by contemporary assyriologists to be a constellation (figure of a mouse (mouse-like creature) or rodent (?)) occupying most of the stars of Centaurus. (The name infers a mouse or rodent.) In Astrolabe B, Section C, Habasirānu is replaced by nu.muš.da ('Swarm') (and the Hyades - also in the Path of Ea - are replaced by gu-la (gula) (Aquarius)). The identification of nu.muš.da is uncertain, and also whether it is a name for a constellation or single star (but Hunger/Pingree (1999) identify the star η or κ Centauri).

Taken as "astronomical" texts it is possible that "three stars each" texts listing planets as month-stars may not have been intended to predict heliacal risings for longer than a single year. Another possibility is that certain months were identified with the planets Venus, Mars, and Jupiter for religious or mythological reasons. ("Names of fixed stars and constellations may have varied and constellations whose names remained constant may have been composed of different stars in different periods. (Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography by Wayne Horowitz, 1998.))"

Basic questions are: how astronomical were the astrolabes? What genre of literature are they connected with? Their purpose was not to regulate the calendar. It is certain that astrolabes were not intercalation devices. The Babylonian national epic Enuma Elish is the earliest written creation myth. It sets out that the chief god of the Babylonians (also the most powerful of the Babylonian gods), Marduk, created an ordered world out of the original state of chaos. He then created time by establishing/devising the first calendar. He establishes the year, divides the length into 12-months, and assigns three stars to each month. (3 stars – 1 in each star path – were meant to rise heliacally in each of the 12 months of the ‘ideal year.’) Simply, Marduk arranges the stars in the image of the astrolabes. The ideal year set out in the astrolabes matches the ideal year established by Marduk (360 days, comprising 12 months of 30 days each). The ‘ideal astrolabe’ was underpinned by the ‘ideal year’ created by the god Marduk. This artificial construction meant they did not fulfil the role of a sidereal calendar. David Brown makes the point: "They were based only very loosely on observational reality." The 'stars' listed were never intended to accurately reflect reality (i.e., what could be actually observed). Divinatory thinking/tradition was given precedence over strict astronomical reality. The order of the 'astrolabe constellations' and the dates of their ideal first appearances are also listed in Enūma Anu Enlil tablet 51, and in the commentaries on Enūma Anu Enlil tablet 50. Thus the genres are associated. In tablet 51 of the omen series Enūma Anu Enlil the astrolabe stars are used to predict good or evil. Thus the astrolabe star lists had magical/divinatory purposes.

Essentially the "astrolabe" texts comprised a scheme in which 3 stars, one lying in each of the 3 star-paths, were meant/(supposed?) to rise heliacally in each of the 12 30-day months of the of the "ideal year." (The dates - per Astrolabe B - reflect their ideal first appearances. However, no days, only months, are noted on the Astrolabe texts.) The "ideal astrolabe" was thus underpinned by the "ideal year." It is likely that the "Astrolabe texts" as well as the Mul.Apin series, comprise an invented scheme and not an observation-based scheme. The assyriologist David Brown thinks it highly unlikely that the "astrolabe texts" served the astronomical purpose of enabling a calendar and marking seasonal events. He instead states (Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology (2000, Page 115)): "They were, instead, learned elaborations based only very loosely on observational reality with regard to the heavens, whose purpose was not to regulate the calendar, but to permit celestial diviners to interpret the occasion of a star's first appearance as good-boding if it corresponded with the scheme and ill-boding if it did not."

Kolev has also stated he has extended his "precess method" to the Mul.Apin series. The Mul.Apin series is usually considered to be "astronomical" (an "astronomical compendium") with the primary aim of regulating the luni-solar year. However, many of the stars/constellations listed appear to be out of order. David Brown (Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology (2000, Page 116)) suggests this "may be because the star lists were never intended accurately to reflect reality."  The star-lists reflect divinatory purposes. Tradition and divinatory purpose often determines content rather than a strict observance to observed fact. The dates given in Mul.Apin for heliacal risings of stars - though ultimately observation-based - were produced artificially. Both the "Astrolabe texts" and the Mul.Apin series are ultimately ideal schemes that do not accurately correspond to reality but serve the purpose of being useful for divinatory purposes.

The nature and widths of the Paths of Enlil, Anu, and Ea still continues to create some uncertainty. (David Brown has proposed that the system of "Three Ways" was awkwardly imposed on an already established (earlier) system of 36 stars. This has clear implications for assumptions of an astronomically accurate scheme.) The 3 broad Paths (Ways) of the great gods Enlil, Anu, and Ea are roughly demarcated bands of varying declination. Opinion still differs whether they were conceived as bands in the sky or arcs along the horizon, and whether they marked declinations of 15, 16 or 17 degrees (with the Path of Anu naturally comprising one of these figures x 2). The Mesopotamian definition of the Paths is connected to the eastern horizon. Hunger/Pingree state (Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia, Page 61): "It is clear that the Paths of Enlil, Anu, and Ea meant something different to the author of the second edition of "Astrolabe B" and the compiler of the first list in MUL.APIN." (Ernst Weidner, and others, in the early 20th-century thought the circular astrolabes indicated 3 concentric spheres for the three paths of Ea, Anu, and Enlil.)

The recent doctoral thesis The Exact Transmission of Texts in the First Millennium B.C.E. by Russell Hobson (2009) includes examination of Enuma Anu Enlil tablet 63 (the 'Venus Tablet') and the Mul.Apin series. Of interest is the concluding statement (Page 494) regarding the lack of stabilisation in the transmission of astronomical/omen cuneiform texts. The latter is interesting. Hobson's examination demonstrates persistent error-making by the trained scribal elite in copying cuneiform astronomical/omen texts. And this error-making occurred over a relatively short period of time. A tradition of oral transmission existed in Mesopotamia. (The numerous variants of popular myths is used as an argument for an oral tradition in Mesopotamia. A group of 'experts' and later, in the Neo-Assyrian period (circa 950-600 BCE), 'chief singers' is identified with oral tradition. It is accepted by a number of scholars that these persons would make slight changes. It appears that in Mesopotamia there was an early reliance/preference for scribes trained to accurately copy texts. According to The Cambridge History of the Bible (Volume 1, 1975, Page 40): "In Mesopotamia oral tradition played only a limited part in the transmission of literary texts after 2,700 B.C., the scribe using an oral source only when all else failed." It is quite evident that scribal tradition = variation and copyist errors. Even the text of the omen series Enuma Anu Enlil exhibits divergences and was not really fixed.

In N.A.B.U. (Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires) 2010, Number 2, Juin, Pages 53-56, and 2010, Number 3, Pages 59-67, Johannes Koch, the late German expert on Babylonian astronomy, in a 2-part article, analyses and rejects Kolev's claims regarding an early date for the astrolabe scheme. (Current issues of N.A.B.U. are not readily available electronically. Access is by subscription (27 Euros per year). It amounts to about 120 pages, issued in 4 fascicles. The intention is to publish short notes (4 pages maximum) relatively quickly to current scholarly discussions, or simply for information, without review. Most of N.A.B.U. is very technical Assyriology. Address for subscriptions is: Dominique Charpin, SEPOA, 14, Rue des Sources, 92160 Antony, France.) Kolev's reply to the 1st part of Koch's critique appeared in N.A.B.U. 2010.3, Pages 67-69. Kolev has stated his reply to the 2nd part of the critique by Johannes Koch will appear in N.A.B.U. 2010.4. (Note: With the death of Johannes Koch the editors of N.A.B.U. have stopped accepting further papers on the subject.)

In a series of 3 ranting postings to Hastro-L, 13-17 June 2011, titled: KOCH JOHANNES & THE ASTROLABE (THE 5500 BC SAGA of NABU) [Part 1, 2, and 3], Kolev restarted his campaign against Johannes Koch (who was then ill and died a few weeks later) and the editor of N.A.B.U. One Hastro-L member posted (15 June, 2011): "Kolev's Parts I and II contain nothing except his usual delusive statements about and attack on Koch without clearly explaining why and where he disagrees with Koch." Kolev is unable to accept that, with the death of Johannes Koch in mid June, 2011, and the standard of unacceptable conduct exhibited by himself [Kolev], the editor of N.A.B.U. declines to print Kolev's further response to Koch's critique. Kolev sees this as part of an 'establishment' conspiracy to to suppress the truth of his 'revolutionary findings.' This same Hastro-L member who [posted on 15 June also posted (17 June, 2011): "You seem to have ignored the fact that, in the absence of an irrefutable proof, modern elucidation of a set of ancient data does not necessarily equate with its original/contemporary interpretation. In your case, you have fitted a set of old Babylonian observations to a modern mathematical model that apparently holds for the 6th millennium BC and, with no solid proof, expect everyone to accept your preferred model. Please explain why you so vehemently attack Koch's arguments and accuse him of "inventing" a model to deceive the readers of his articles? Do you have access to a contemporary Babylonian source that backs your dates and rejects those concluded by Koch? If another model finds an equally good match dating to ca. 25,000 years earlier than your dates, can we insist that the prehistoric inhabitants of Babylonia had devised the Astrolabe in question? Considering little else and putting your arguments and those of Koch on the balance of probabilities, ca. 1500 BC is a far more likely date than 5500 BC for the data set in question."

Kolev's focus on Koch ignores the article - independently supporting Koch and refuting Kolev - by M[?]. Nickiforov and J[?]. Tabov "Problems of dating of the Babylonian "Astrolabes." (1991?) in which they write: "The calculations show, that there is no historical epoch or turn of the heavenly sphere on a longitude, for which the hypothesis that the order of the constellations in the "astrolabe" follows the order of their declinations is correct. Conclusions: 1. The verifications based on the content of the "astrolabes", the order of the constellations by longitude and the order of the constellations by declination show that the traditional view on the "astrolabes" [as astronomical documents] causes many contradictions. 2. It is possible that the Babylonian "astrolabes" actually do not represent real observations of the star sky. They could be related to some ritual or could be religious or astrological texts. 3. If the "astrolabes" mirror real astronomical observations, probably some basic parts of the Babylonian astronomical texts are deciphered incorrectly, and at least the identification of the constellations, stars and planets for all texts are incorrect. 4. Even if we assume, that the "astrolabes" reflect real astronomical observations, it is difficult to say if the available information could be used for astronomical dating of these observations. Most probably, the "astrolabes" are [to be] dated by some archaeological data or by other reasons."

If the astrolabe genre was earlier than the 2nd millennium BCE it does not mean the earlier texts would be the same as those we have from the 2nd millennium BCE. The assyriologist Wayne Horowitz, an expert on astrolabes - he has been studying them for some 2 decades, states the astrolabe group of tablets never reached a canonical form. Competing versions circulated. "For the Astrolabes ... the group never reached a canonical form which could be passed down from generation to generation. Hence, the four sections of the earliest and most complete form of the Astrolabes, the so-called 12th-century Berlin Astrolabe, better known as Astrolabe B, never occur together on any earlier or later tablet belonging to the group, although each of the four sections survives separately into the first millennium." (Writing Science before the Greeks by Rita Watson and Wayne Horowitz (2011, Page 13).)

To summarise the views of the British assyriologist David Brown who writes of the "divinatory genre of astrolabe texts": The astrolabe texts, like all cuneiform texts, need to be placed in their cultural, social, and intellectual contexts. Divinatory purposes underpin all 3. The wide array of cuneiform texts on astral sciences ultimately had a divinatory purpose and divinatory lore and purpose shaped the content of the astrolabes - not accurate observational astronomy. The ideal (but not standardised) astrolabe is reflected in Enūma Anu Enlil tablets 50-51. Furthermore astral practices and beliefs of the 2nd-millennium BCE shaped later astral practices and beliefs (those of the 1st-millennium BCE).

In his journal The Babylonian Sky Observer (Volume 3, September, 2008) Kolev claims that modern mainstream assyriology is falsifying history. He writes: "[T]he aim of the modern Minimalistic mainstream assyriology seems to be to deny any antiquity to the birth of the Sky Knowledge in Mesopotamia and to push its beginning [forward] somewhere around 1600 BC and even 1200 BC. This is without doubt the most important task of the minimalists. … Who are these people? Who are the minimalists? They are the vast majority (but not all) of the leading modern scholars who research Mesopotamia - assyriologists, historians, astronomers .... just any well established scholar with interest in the field. Most of them seem to be brainwashed people who really believe in what they say. I, however, do not exclude the possibility that some are conscious or semi-conscious perpetrators. Their ultimate aim is to keep under veil the ancient Knowledge of Mesopotamia. They reach this trough many different ways of manipulation, indoctrination, censorship and outright suppression of research. Some methods may be very rude including sacking of 'dangerous' scholars and their gradual elimination from the academic life." No evidence is offered for any of these uninformed claims. The ferocity of these absurd attacks have increased in his lengthy article "The Destruction of the pan-Babylonism or pan-Babylonian Fantasies becoming reality." in Volume 5 of The Babylonian Sky Observer (Published 2010). The Babylonian Sky Observer, which is produced and edited by Rumen Kolev, is the vehicle for his views. None of his articles on the Astrolabe have, to date, been published in a professional refereed journal.

The absurdity of Kolev's position is his own decision. The knowledge gained by sophisticated modern assyriology is rejected as deliberately distorting/obscuring the knowledge established by the German Panbabylonists Alfred Jeremias and Ernst Weidner - and Kolev seeks to vindicate their original dating for Babylonian astronomy. Ignored is the fact that Ernst Weidner (an assyriologist) started his own assyriology journal circa the 1930s and continued to edit and publish it until his death in 1976 - yet, except for (inappropriately) dating some star-lists to the 3rd-millennium BCE, never attempted to defend his earlier positions, nor those of Alfred Jeremias. 

Rumen Kolev also supports the flawed system of astrological 'primary directions' developed by the 17th-century Italian monk Placidus de Titus.

At his website Kolev has posted (June, 2011) his 5-page: *THE CRITIQUE of GARY THOMPSON CONCERNING THE 5,500 BC DATING of THE ASTROLABE*. Needless to say he avoids/misunderstands arguments concerning the interrelatedness of multiple 2nd-millennium BCE documents. There is no convincing reason to consider the Astrolabes and the Mul.Apin series to be primarily astronomical documents. They are connected to the creation epic Enūma Elish and all are connected with the omen series Enūma Anu Enlil, very much a late 2nd-millennium BCE text. Nothing recovered to date from Sumerian period texts matches the Old Babylonian omen texts. Interestingly, Kolev also denies statements that he has made. On March 25 (last edited November 26), 2009 at ACT Astrology (actastrology.com) he posted "The first coordinate system going back to 5,500 BC was an equatorial system consisting of 3 circles-paths each divided in 12 sections." I have mentioned this statement above, adding his accuracy criteria that he had mentioned elsewhere: [± 300 years]. However, in his supposed "*THE CRITIQUE of GARY THOMPSON ...." he writes (very first statement): "Gary Thompson quotes me as having said: "The first coordinate system going back to 5,500 BC [± 300 years] was an equatorial system consisting of 3 circles-paths each divided in 12 sections." This is not true." It very much is true that I have reliably quoted Kolev.

(k) Mircia Eliade (1907-1986) Romanian historian of religion, and professor at the University of Chicago. Eliade argued that the Panbabylonian school was was correct in comparing religious phenomena which were "historically related and structurally analogous." Eliade drew on a number of Panbabylonian ideas. "Wheatley's arguments concerning the axis mundi was based on the work of Eliade. Eliade in turn based his arguments on the Pan-Babylonian scholars - with the crucial difference that the Pan-Babylonian scholars saw notions of the sacred center as diffused from the Near East, whereas Eliade saw them as a universal aspect of what he called primitive cultures. In other words the entire notion of an axis mundi came originally from the Pan-Babylonian scholars' reading of Near Eastern materials, and Eliade, and later Wheatley, then universalized the notion. However, the existence of the notion of an axis mundi in the Near Eastern materials has been called into question as well. As Jonathan Z. Smith (To Take Place, p. 16) has argued: "There is no pattern of the 'Center' in the sense that the Pan-Babylonians and Eliade described it in the Near Eastern materials."" (To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China by Michael Pratt (2002, Page 42, Note 37.)

(l) Zecharia Sitchin (1920-2010 (of prostrate cancer)) (USA) An Azerbaijani-born (born in Baku, Soviet Socialist Republic (= Russia)) American Journalist/Fantasist (Russian pseudo-scholar). He was raised in Palestine. Sitchin graduated (undergraduate degree in economic historyfrom the London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London). His early career involved moving to Israel and working for a few years as a journalist and editor; then (after failing as a journalist) moving/settling in New York City in 1952 (initially, it appears, having a job as an executive at a shipping company). According to Traffic World (Volume 132, 1967, Page 132), Sitching was the President of Intercontinental Trailsea. In the present-day the ultimate level of absurdity with Panbabylonian ideas is reached with the Sumer-centred 'ancient astronaut' claims of Zecharia Sitchin. His seminal first book The 12th Planet (1976) is now (2010) in its 45th printing). After his 1st book he wrote 13 other books on the same theme. He has been thoroughly criticised for misunderstanding (or wanting to misunderstand) Mesopotamian literature (and cuneiform philology, biology, and astronomy). Interestingly, most of Sitchin’s sources are obsolete. Scientists and academics have repeated demonstrated that Sitchin's ideas are pseudo-science and pseudo-history and his books have been repeatedly criticized for flawed methodology and mistranslations of ancient texts as well as for incorrect astronomical and scientific claims. Sitchin never responded to questions regarding how he learned to read Sumerian cuneiform script. At best he would broadly state that -  starting in childhood - he has studied ancient Hebrew, Akkadian and Sumerian. Sitchin never demonstrated he had a scholarly, or indeed any understanding, of ancient languages. No scholar (who has taken the time) with credentials or expertise in Sumerian or Akkadian has positively assessed Sitchin's publications. His 2-Volume autobiography (Earth Chronicles Expeditions: Journeys to the Mythical Past) was published 2004-2007. His wife of 66 years died in 2007; they raised their 2 daughters in New York City. A particular event Sitchin would organise was the (3-day) Sitchin Studies Certification Seminar. His stated intention was to create a cadre of in-depth students who would be qualified to continue his legacy! (People attended from overseas.) It appears persons who attended 3 of these seminars were given recognition as Alumni (a certificate signed by Sitchin). Each attendee was called a Sitchinite. Sitchin's niece, Janet Sitchin (who appears to have been a swimming instructor, based in Miami, Florida), currently (2012) maintains "The Official Website of Zecharia Sitchin" and proposed that October 9 mark a Sitchin Studies Day each year. One of his latest disciples is South African musician and actor Michael Tellinger Slave Species of god (2005). Tellinger has a B.Pharm (1983) from Wits University.

(m) Ephraim Speiser (1902 – 1965) was a Polish-born American assyriologist. He received his MA in 1923 from the University of Pennsylvania, then his Ph.D. in 1924 from Dropsie College in Philadelphia 1924. From 1924 to 1926 he was Harrison Research Fellow in Semitics at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1927, excavating in northern Mesopotamia, he discovered the ancient site of Tepe Gawra and supervised its excavation between 1931 and 1938. In 1928 he was appointed assistant professor of Semitics at the University of Pennsylvania, and full professor in 1931.He translated the Hurrian legal texts found at Nuzi. After service in Washington during WWII he returned to the University of Pennsylvania, becoming Chairman of the Department of Oriental Studies from 1947 to 1965. In 1954 he was also appointed Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures there. Parallels were drawn by Speiser between the Nuzi tablets and biblical traditions. Speiser drew many parallels between the stories of the Patriarchs and the Horite documents from Nuzi dating mainly from the 15th-century BCE. In what is considered a classic example, Speiser argued that the Nuzi tablets explained Sarah's relationship to Abraham as a wife/sister. Speiser's flirtation with Panbabylonism was ably critiqued by Thomas Thompson in his 1974 article, "The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham." The results of the parallels are no longer as promising as Speiser thought. The Patriarchs, by the traditional biblical chronology, antedate the Nuzi texts by 400 to 500 years. (Cyrus Gordon also supported many of Speiser's parallels and arguments.)

Appendix 3: Prominent Opponents:

(1) Star Myth School Tenets:

(a) Elard Meyer (1837-1908) (Germany) Philologist.

(b) Adolf Bastian (1826-1905) (Germany) Ethnologist. Professor at the University of Berlin. Generally recognised as the founder of ethnography. Was particularly opposed to the star myth ideas of Eduard Stucken (as well as Panbabylonism).

(2) Early Scientific Babylonian Astronomy Tenets:

(a) Franz Kugler (1862-1929) (Born in Germany but resided in Holland) Mathematician/Assyriologist.

(b) Carl Bezold (1859-1922) (Germany) Assyriologist.

(3) Babel-Bibel Tenets:

(a) Hugo Gressmann (1877-1927) (Germany) Old Testament Scholar. Professor at the University of Berlin.

(b) Albert Clay (1866-1925) (USA) Philologist. A Lutheran oriental scholar who, during his academic career, edited large numbers of cuneiform texts. He was ordained in 1892 and served as a Pastor in Philadelphia and South Bethlehem, Pennsylvannia; and Chicago, Illinois. During the latter part of his career he was Professor of Semitic Philology and Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania, 1909-1910. He was Professor of Assyriology at Yale University from 1910-1925, and Curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, 1912-1925.

(c) Morris Jastrow Junior (1861-1921) (USA) Semiticist. Was Professor of Semitic Languages in the University of Pennsylvania.

(d) Crawford Toy (1836-1919) (USA). The Faculty of Divinity, Harvard University.

(4) Basis in Assyriology Tenets:

(a) Nikolaus Schneider (1887-1953) (Germany) Assyriologist.

(b) Leonard King (1869-1919) (England) Assyriologist.

Other Opponents:

(a) Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954) (Germany) Ethnologist/Historian.

(b) Otto Schroeder (1851-1937) (Germany) Assyriologist. Schroeder prepared the "Winckler-Bibliographie." that appeared in Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, Band XX, Number 1, 1916, Pages 25-48.

(c) Heinrich Rühle (1871-?) (Germany). I have not yet been able to find any biographical details. From references to publications by F. Rühle/Rühle he was likely an assyriologist or ancient historian (Professor) at a university.  

(d) Friedrich Küchle (1874-1921) (Germany) Theologian/Assyriologist.

(e) Eduard Meyer (1855-1930) (Germany) Philologist/Historian.

(f) Franz Boll (1867-1924) (Germany) Philologist.

(g) Franz Cumont (1868-1947) (Belgium) Philologist/Historian.

Appendix 4: Alfred Jeremias:

The claim of the German Panbabylonists (especially Alfred Jeremias) that Mesopotamian/Sumerian astrology originated in the supposed zodiacal age of Gemini (circa 5,000 - 6,000 BCE) and is the foundation of all the religions and cultures throughout the world is impossible to maintain. Both Hugo Winckler and Alfred Jeremias claimed the astral theory underpinning the 'Weltanschauung' ('view of the universe') originated in the 'Age of the Twins' (Gemini). Winkler dated such between 5,700 BCE and 2,500 BCE. Alfred Jeremias (The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient Near East, (English edition (1911), Volume 1, Pages 13 & 71) claimed mythological motifs connecting the beginning of a new era with Gemini (Dioscuros myths) indicate that the zodiac was devised in the 'Age of the Twins.' He further claimed: "A planisphere from the library of Assurbanipal [K 8538 (CT 33, 10)], based upon ancient calculations ... show's a graduation of the sun's course and marks for the zero point a point between the Bull and the Twins ("Scorpion's Star, 70 degrees")." Alfred Jeremias concluded that the zodiacal division of the heavens was devised in the 'Age of Gemini' prior to the Sumerian civilization beginning. Also, he claimed: "In the most remote time upon which we have as yet any historical light, the spring equinox was in the zodiacal sign of Gemini."

It would be a mistake to think that Alfred Jeremias was a pioneering assyriologist. Alfred Jeremias was, of course, no such person. After studying Assyriology and theology Alfred Jeremias spent most of his life working as a Lutheran Pastor in Leipzig. He basically pursued assyriology as a pastime and only late in life came to hold a permanent university position in assyriology. Following World War 1 Jeremias spent his time mostly updating his key publications and produced only a few new pamphlets. Alfred Jeremias would be judged "odd" by reasonable benchmarks. He held that the various cultures of mankind are no more than the dialects of one and the same spiritual language. He became an admirer of the notorious racist Hermann Wirth who was a Dutch-German lay amateur folklorist and historian of ancient religions and symbols. It appears Alfred Jeremias was not above toying with reincarnation and characterising the Panbabylonist Hugo Winckler as an old Babylonian king.

During the hey-day of Panbabylonism (early 19th-century) the chronology of early Mesopotamian/Babylonia was in a confused state. Very early dates were mistakenly established. Mesopotamian/Babylonian chronology was not suitably stabilized until circa the 1940s. At the turn of the 19th-century Sargon of Akkad was dated to circa 3,800 BCE until decades later circa 2,350 BCE was confidently established. (In one of his publications Jeremias dated Sargon to 2,650 BCE.) Hermann Hilprecht had no problem with dating Enshakushanna, an early king of Uruk, to circa 6,500 BCE. The current dating is circa 2,500 BCE. At this period in assyriology new material always compelled lowering of dates. (See, for example: "A Third Revision of the Early Chronology of Western Asia" By William Albright (Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research, Number 88, December, 1942, Pages 28-36).

Appendix 5: Reproduction of Article Posted on Web:

Dr. M.G. Nickiforov (Moscow), Dr. J.B. Tabov (Sofia).

von Eino am 07 Jul. 2008 17:23

Forum - IV Internationale geschichtsanalytische Tagung

Dr. M.G. Nickiforov (Moscow), Dr. J.B. Tabov (Sofia)

Problems of dating of Babylon "Astrolabes"

Among of traditional history supporters is considered that the ancient Babylon chronology can be confirmed as a result of dating of cuneiform tablets of the astronomical content. To present the basic results of researches of Babylon "Astrolabes", obtained in work [1] and to call into question adequacy this historical documents for acknowledgement of traditional chronology is the purpose of this report.

Origin and content of "Astrolabes". An astrolabe is one of the oldest goniometric tool for measuring the positions of stars. It is considered, that in Ancient Babylonia this device was not known. The Babylon astrolabe (unsuccessful term applied by experts) is means as the not named device. They are related to number of the most ancient astronomical cuneiform documents of the Babylon origin. Instead of the Babylon astrolabe we mention simply "astrolabe".

Earliest of the kept texts is considered "astrolabe B" or "Berlin astrolabe". It occurs from Ashur and is dated approximately 1100 B.C. Round "astrolabes" in the form of a disk are divided by three enclosed circles and twelve "monthly" sectors on 36 fragments. They are considered as the most old kind. Later type of the texts (for example, so-called "astrolabe Р") are considered rectangular "astrolabes" in the form of the tables containing three columns on twelve lines, corresponding to areas of sky Eа (southern stars), Anu (stars of the middle of the sky) and Enlil (northern stars).

Elam, Akkad and Amurru star lists have only one column of stars. However the content of these lists coincide with stars of "astrolabes" and the order of their enumeration precisely corresponds to the order of twelve months in "astrolabes". Therefore, the lists of stars specified above and "astrolabes" represent related categories of texts which we further shall consider as one. Researchers of "astrolabes" consider, that these are approximately dated 11 century B.C. [2].

They suggest "astrolabes" are results of real astronomical observations and contain the information about heliacal risings of the specified stars and constellations for corresponding month. Under heliacal rising the first appearance of a star or constellation in a morning sky is understood.

Astronomical verification of traditional views about "astrolabes". If "astrolabes" really originated from observations:

1) the stars and constellations in each column of "astrolabe" should be ordered on a longitudes to correspond the order of the heliacal risings appropriated to fixed months of a year

2) stars and constellations in each column of "astrolabe" should be ordered on declinations or areas of the sky (northern stars, southern stars, stars of the middle of the sky).

As declinations of stars are changed affected by lunar-solar precession, the belonging of heavenly bodies or constellations to the certain sky areas can be the tool for astronomical dating.

For the present research we have taken advantage of "astrolabe P” from work [2]. Work [3] was used for an identification of the Babylon astronomical terms. The verification has shown:

1. From 36 objects of "astrolabe" one of names is not identified, identification of two constellations does not allow to carry them to northern stars during any historical epoch. Besides, the stars α, β Gem and the planet Jupiter are contained in "astrolabe" twice. Furthermore, “both of the Jupiters” are divided from each other by several constellations which the planet cannot overcome within one year.

2. „Astrolabes Р” contain the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter (twice), but all this identifications are considered very reliable. Presence of moving planets contradicts conception about heliacal risings in star "astrolabe" and conformity of each astronomical object named in “astrolabe” to the certain month.

3. Constellations of "astrolabe" columns are ordered on a longitude only for southern stars (Ea). In set of stars of the middle of the sky (Anu) for preservation of the order of following on a longitude it is necessary to refuse identification of five constellations. The most part of northern stars of "astrolabe" (Enlil) is not ordered on a longitude. Thus, the hypothesis about conformity of constellations to the order heliacal risings does not find acknowledgement.

4. The calculated positions of constellations for 11-th century B.C. mismatch their specified positions to areas Ea, Anu and Enlil. It is shown, that there is no historical epoch (or turn of heavenly sphere on a longitude) for which declared conformity it would be carried out.

The conclusion. As a result of an identification of separate stars and the constellations specified in "astrolabes" on the basis of decoding of other Babylon texts was established, that the card (scheme) of the star sky of "astrolabe" received as a result of substitution mismatches a real arrangement of constellations in the sky and to the order of following heliacal risings. From this conclusion a number of alternatives follows.

1. The Babylon cuneiform tablets is called by tradition "astrolabes", actually have no attitude to astronomy and real observations of the star sky. Possibly, they are related to some ritual, religious or astrological texts with not clear applicability.

2. There is an opportunity, that "astrolabes" really was originated from real astronomical observations. However, the basic part of the Babylon texts is deciphered so unreliably, that it is impossible to establish uniform and unequivocal identification of constellations, stars and planets for all texts. As a result, numerous errors in identifications of constellations lead to discrepancy of configurations of constellations in "astrolabes" to the real star sky. The question of a problematic of translations of the Babylon texts and very liberal interpretation of their content by some authors, has been mentioned in work [4].

Thus, even we assume, that texts is named by "astrolabes" is a result of astronomical observations it is impossible to confirm or to deny this thesis on the basis of an information available on today. The analysis shows unsteadiness of astronomical dating of age of "astrolabes" on the basis of the information concluded in these documents. Most possibly, dates of drawing up of "astrolabes" offered by researchers are postulated by any other reasons.

References

1. Nickiforov, М.G.: Drevnie Vavilonskie "astrolyabii" i problemi ih datirovki. // It is presented to the Collection of articles on New Chronology №7 ” (http://astrobase.ru/astronomy/babylon02.html>).

2. Van der Waerden, B.L: Ontwakende wetenschap Ecyptiche, babylonysche, en criekse wiskunde Groningen, 1954.

3. Kurtik, G.E.: Zvezdnoe nebo drevney Mesopotamii. Spb, Aleteinya, 2007.

4. Nickiforov, М.G.: K voprosu datirovki drevnevavilonskih tablichek LBAT 1456, 1452, 1413. // The collection of articles on New Chronology №6. (http://new.chronologia.org/volume6/nik_babilon.html), and http://astrobase.ru/astronomy/babylon.html .

Dr. M.G. Nickiforov (Moscow), Dr. J.B. Tabov (Sofia) , (Eino * | 07 Jul. 2008 17:23)

Appendix 6: References:

Anon? (1912). "Some Recent Books on Panbabylonism." (Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Volume 1, Number 3, September, Pages 563-578). [Note: Focuses on Panbabylonian astral ideas.]

Arnold, Bill. and Weisberg, David. (2002). "A Centennial Review of Friedrich Delitzsch's 'Babel und Bibel' Lectures." (Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 121/3, Pages 441-457). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Barton, George. (1908). "Recent German Theories of Foreign Influences in the Bible." (The Biblical world, Volume 31, Number 5, May, Pages 336-347). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Barton, George. (1908). "The Astro-Mythological School of Biblical Interpretation." (The Biblical world, Volume 31, Number 6, June, Pages 433-444). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Budde, Karl. (1903). Das Alte Testament und die Ausgrabungen. [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Ebach, Jürgen. (1998). "Panbabylonismus." In: Gladigow, Burkhard. et. al. (Editors). Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe, Band IV. (Pages 302-304).

Ermoni, Vincent. (1909). "Le panbabylonisme." (Revue des Idées, Tome 6, Pages 339-366). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Finkelstein, Jacob. (1958). Bibel and Babel: A Comparative Study of the Hebrew and Babylon Religious Spirit." (Commentary, Volume 26, July-December, Pages 431-444). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Gold, Daniel. (2003). Aesthetics and Analysis in Writing on Religion: Modern Fascinations. [Note: Focuses on Panbabylonian astral ideas. Contains numerous interesting references.]

Huffmon, Herbert. (1983). "Babel und Bibel: The Encounter Between Babylon and the Bible." (Michigan Quarterly Review, Volume XXII, Number 3, Summer, Pages 309-320). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Karge, Paul. (1913). Babylonisches im Neuen Testament. [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Klaus, Johanning. (1988). Der Bibel-Babel-Streit: Eine forschungsgeschichtliche Studie. [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

König, Eduard. (1905). "The Latest Phase of the Controversy over Babylon and the Bible." (The American Journal of Theology, Volume 9, Number 3, July, Pages 405-420). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

König, Eduard. (1922). Die Moderne Babylonisierung der Bibel. [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Korom, Frank. (1992). "Of Navels and Mountains: A Further Inquiry into the History of an Idea." ((Asian Folklore Studies, Volume 51, Pages 103-125).

Kugler, Franz. (1909). "Auf den Trümmern des Panbabylonismus." (Anthropos, Band IV, Pages 477-499).

Kugler, Franz. (1910). Im Bannkreis Babels: Panbabylonistische Konstruktionen und Religionsgeschichtliche Tatsachen. [Note: Book length refutation of the idea that a highly developed knowledge of astronomy existed in Babylonia circa 3000 BCE.]

Larsen, Mogens. (1995). "The "Babel/Bible" Controversy and Its Aftermath." In: Sasson, Jack. (Editor). Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. (Pages 95-106). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Lehmann, Reinhard. (1994). Friedrich Delitzsch und der Babel-Bibel-Streit. [Note: Book-length study of the Babel and Bible stream which focuses on Friedrich Delitzsch.]

Marchand, Suzanne (Department of History, Louisiana State University). (2004). "Philhellenism and the Furor Orientalis." (Modern Intellectual History, Volume 1, Issue 3, November, Pages 331-358). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.] ["Abstract: Focusing on the study of the ancient Orient in fin-de-siècle Germany, this essay argues that "orientalism" had a wider range of cultural consequences than the term usually evokes in studies of Western imperialism and its ideologies. The essay describes the development of a generational movement in German scholarship that was characterized by its vigorous championing of the Orient over and against the dominant tendency to isolate and exalt classical civilizations, and especially ancient Greece, and by its role in destabilizing Western presumptions. It demonstrates that the furor orientalis did contribute to the decentering of the Greeks and the ancient Hebrews, bequeathing to the twentieth century both a much deeper and more diverse picture of the ancient Near East and an obsession with origins that could be mobilized by racist propagandists. The essay offers three case studies of groups which exemplified this furor—the Panbabylonists; the Religious-Historical School; and the iconoclastic mythographer Heinrich Zimmer, who represents a strong strain of Schopenhauerian Indology. It concludes by suggesting the more constructive directions taken by orientalists outside Germany in the 1920s–1940s, and poses the question: how long will the peaceful solutions they promoted last?"]

Oettli, Samuel. (1903). Der Kampf um Bibel und Babel. [Note: Focuses mainly on the Babel and Bible stream. Includes a discussion of Hugo Winckler's Panbabylonian astral ideas.]

Parpola, Simo. (2004). "Back to Delitzsch and Jeremias: The Relevance of the Pan-Babylonian School to the MELAMMU Project." In: Panaino, Antonio. and Piras, Andreas. (Editors). Schools of Oriental Studies and the Development of Modern Historiography. [Note: Parpola has re-introduced the discussion of Panbabylonism with this circa 2005 conference paper. It comprises an informed and sympathetic approach to Panbabylonism. However, Parpola, believes: "[Winckler and Jeremias] ... were well informed in astronomy, astrology .... [and] the facts collected by them are on the whole presented accurately and reliably, and have not lost their validity." One of the main demolition arguments against Panbabylonism, first proposed by Franz Kugler in 1910 and still relevant, is the Panbabylonists base(d) their ideas upon the supposed antiquity of sophisticated Babylonian astronomical knowledge and astrological schemes (5th-4th-millennium BCE). However, Kugler demonstrated that both were quite late in origin (1st-millennium BCE). Parpola, believes: "[Winckler and Jeremias] ... were well informed in astronomy, astrology .... [and] the facts collected by them are on the whole presented accurately and reliably, and have not lost their validity." The very young cuneiform philologist Ernst Weidner, when a Panbabylonist, supported such concepts as early Babylonian knowledge of precession and the crescent of Venus. It is generally agreed that Franz Kugler never suitably answered the claims made by Ernst Weidner that the Babylonians knew of the crescent phase of Venus. None of the texts used by Weidner were earlier than the 1st-millennium BCE. Weidner's ideas regarding Babylonian knowledge of the crescent phase of Venus were taken up by Joseph Offord. (See: Offord, Joseph. (1915). "The Deity of the Crescent Venus in Ancient Western Asia." (The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, (New Series), Volume 47, Issue 2, April, Pages 197-203). A capable responding article is: Campbell, W. W. (1916). "Is the Crescent Form of Venus Visible to the Naked Eye?" (Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Volume 28, Number 162, February, Pages 85-86).) Parpola, believes: "[Winckler and Jeremias] ... were well informed in astronomy, astrology .... [and] the facts collected by them are on the whole presented accurately and reliably, and have not lost their validity." One omen text used was from Assurbanipal's era. However, decades later, the equally competent Johann Schaumberger did not. Also, in a very brief article, Anon (= Editor?), "The Crescent of Venus," in, The English Mechanic and World of Science (Volume 77, Number 1984, 1903, Page 161), cites a letter from Johann Strassmaier to Knowledge: An Illustrated Magazine of Science, Literature and Art, stating that he did not know of any cuneiform inscriptions that mentioned the "phases of Venus." The horns of Venus issue (which dates back to the early period of Assyriology) has been dealt with by Johann Schaumberger in his Erganzungsheft 3 (1935, See pages 290ff but especially page 302) of Franz Kugler's Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel (1907-1924; continued by Schaumberger 1935). According to Schaumberger the cuneiform term "karnu" (or "karni") can mean "horn" or can mean "side." Thus the "horn of Venus" is properly interpreted to mean the "side of Venus." Schaumberger mentions the term "karnu" is also applied to Mars but the interpretation cannot be the "horns of Mars." Schaumberger (Page 303, Der Bart der Venus) also explains the "Beard of Venus."

Rogerson, John. (1974). Myth in Old Testament Interpretation. (See: Chapter 4 "Astral Mythology and Anthropological Mythology", Pages 45-51). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Sandmel, Samuel. (1962). "Parallelomania." (Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 81, Pages 1-13).

Schmidt, Wilhelm. (1908). Panbabylonismus und ethnologischer Elementargedanke. [Note: The pamphlet (off-print) was originally published as a 19-page journal article in: Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, Band XXXVIII, (der dritten Folge Band VIII), Pages 73-91.]

Schmidt, Wilhelm. (1931). The Origin and Growth of Religion: Facts and Theories. (See: Chapter VIII "Star Myths and Panbabylonianism", Pages 91-102). [Note: Comprehensive but not wholly reliable.]

Shavit, Yaacov. and Eran, Mordechai. (2003). The War of the Tablets: The Defence of the Bible in the19th Century and the Babel-Bibel Controversy. [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream. An English-language edition is planned for this Hebrew-language book.]

Smith, Jonathan. (1982). Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. (See: "In Comparison a Magic Dwells", Pages 19-35).

Streck, Bernhard. (2003). "Babel-Bibel oder die wiederkehrende Theomachie." (Paideuma, Band 49, Pages 61-86). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

Surburg, Raymond. (1983). "The Influence of the Two Delitzsches on Biblical and Near Eastern Studies." (Concordia Theological Quarterly, Volume 47, Number 3, July, Pages 225-240). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream but recognises that it lies within the framework of Panbabylonism.]

Toy, Crawford. (1910). "Panbabylonianism." (The Harvard Theological Review, Volume III, Pages 47-84). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

de Vries, Jan. (1967). The Study of Religion: A Historical Approach. (See: Chapter Fourteen "Panbabylonism", Pages 95-98).

Wardle, William. (1925). Israel and Babylon. (See: Chapter XII "The Panbabylonian Theory", Pages 302-330). [Note: Focuses on the Babel and Bible stream.]

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